ESPN Boxing

LAS VEGAS -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. ought to be ashamed of himself.

Tom Briglia/WireImage.comA decorated champion like Mayweather might need a stiffer challenge than his April 8 bout vs. Zab Judah.

He's not, of course. The world's finest fighter will be perfectly content to pluck the welterweight title belt that Zab Judah "won" by losing to a guy with nine losses when they meet on the UNLV campus a week from Saturday.

But he ought to be ashamed for even considering fighting for that tarnished belt, much less doing it.

I doubt Donald Trump gets off by buying a Ford Focus for $1,500 below the sticker price.

I doubt Bill Gates agrees to a two-hour layover at Midway so he can save $75 off the full fare on a flight to New York.

When you're the best, the biggest and the brightest, you don't need to trifle with the little things that trouble the masses.

Luis Collazo needs a welterweight title belt. Zab Judah, who was beaten by a guy with nine losses, needs a title belt.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. does not.

He's already the pound-for-pound king. He's already regarded as one of the best of all time.

But Mayweather is still going to fight for the belt Judah won by losing to a guy with nine losses in Carlos Baldomir.

Mayweather has no intention of following Riddick Bowe's lead and dumping the belt into the trash where it belongs when he wins it.

Rest assured, he'll win it. But if he cared about the sport that has made him rich, he'd decline to even fight for this tainted title.

The fight, you may remember, was supposed to be for the undisputed welterweight championship before the supposedly great Judah was beaten by a guy with nine losses.

Poor Zab was so overwhelmed by all the interviews he was asked to do that he was not himself in the ring against a guy with nine losses. I guess that's why he blew off a conference call the other day, although somebody ought to let him in on a secret: No one was happier when he skipped the call than the boxing writers who would have had to listen to his drivel.

Given that Ricky Hatton wouldn't fight him and Antonio Margarito had a date he couldn't get out of, there were few choices for Mayweather when it came to picking a high-profile opponent for his April 8 date.

Actually fighting Judah, even though he couldn't beat a guy with nine losses, isn't the problem.

It's the part about competing for that belt that is wrong.

In June, the Associated Press Sports Editors will hold their annual convention in Las Vegas. I'm going to be on a panel along with Tim Dahlberg of the Associated Press, Ron Borges of the Boston Globe, Steve Springer of the Los Angeles Times and Al Bernstein of Showtime that is called "Boxing: America's lost sport."

We're supposed to talk about the ways the sports editors of America's newspapers can enhance their sections by adding more boxing coverage.

And I can point to many great stories that the vast majority of daily newspapers are missing.

But how I can defend a sport in which a guy loses in the ring and is given his belt back immediately?

You can't.

And I can't understand Mayweather willingly agreeing to pay the exorbitant sanctioning fee he's going to be required to pay to fight for a belt that is so tainted, most boxing writers won't even mention it.

Can you imagine the outcry if the NFL had said after the divisional playoff game between the Colts and the Steelers that even though the Steelers had more points, the Colts were going to advance?

There is no way to justify that this is a title fight.

If you are involved in boxing and want to clean it up, you begin by not treating your customers like fools. But that's what Arum & Co. are doing by putting on a title fight featuring a champion who cleanly lost it in the ring (not to mention to a guy with nine defeats).

Boxers are so quick to moan when they're wronged by the sanctioning bodies, but they're quick to condone those injustices when it benefits them.

Mayweather would set himself apart by refusing to play those games. He's the best there is and everyone knows it.

He doesn't need the strap of an organization that gives its belt to a guy who couldn't beat a fighter with nine losses to legitimize him.

Here's a suggestion: Mayweather should take the money he would have spent on the sanctioning fees, announce he's donating it to something like Hurricane Katrina relief and then just fight a 12-round fight.

Then that money wouldn't be wasted by going into the pockets of those guys in New Jersey. At least then it would be helping people who desperately need the help.