Judah-Mosley fight canceled after accident

“Sugar” Shane Mosley’s scheduled May 31 welterweight fight against former world champion Zab Judah has been canceled, and is in jeopardy of not being rescheduled, Judah’s manager said Thursday.

Judah, 30, suffered a badly cut right arm May 1 when he slipped in a Las Vegas boxing gym’s shower and fell through a glass shower door. Doctors have told Judah he’ll require a layoff of four weeks to recover after 50 stitches were required to treat the multiple lacerations.

Pomona’s Mosley and his manager-wife, Jin, apparently aren’t willing to wait, Judah’s manager, Michael Shinefield, said.

Although a news release from Mosley’s promoter, Golden Boy, labeled it as “canceled,” Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions, said in prepared remarks that, “We are already in discussions with all parties involved to attempt to reschedule the fight for the near future.”

But Shinefield said: “Jin said no; the Mosleys don’t want this fight unless it’s on May 31. I’ve been told HBO’s willing to find an open date, and I think Richard Schaefer is still looking for a date, but the Mosleys are saying they don’t want the fight.”

Schaefer remained hopeful.

“The first reaction after all this training and to be told the date’s off is to be upset,” he said. “But if I can come up with a rescheduled date with HBO and a venue that is in a reasonable time frame, that may make it work. I just need to talk to everyone, and talk to the Mosleys.”

Late Thursday, Shane Mosley said, “I made 147 yesterday and I’m really disappointed, although I’m not shocked. It’s typical Zab. The only thing I have to say about it is, next.”

Judah visited Golden Boy officials Thursday to show them the severity of the injury, Shinefield said.

Hyped as “High Stakes,” the non-title, pay-per-view welterweight meeting at Mandalay Bay Events Center was to pit two former world champions in their 30s who each lost to world welterweight champion Miguel Cotto last year: Mosley, 35, by unanimous decision, and Judah, 30, by technical knockout.

The loser’s future as a legitimate fighter in various pound-for-pound rankings would be in jeopardy.

Former welterweight and light-welterweight champion Judah (36-5, 25 knockouts) had been training in Las Vegas at the Top Rank gym, Shinefield said.

“It was one of his best sparring sessions,” Shinefield said. “Zab would’ve destroyed this guy, and if there wasn’t a risk his arm would explode open in the ring, he’d take the fight May 31. But it looks like a shark bite.”

Mosley’s trainer and father, Jack Mosley, said Thursday he was surprised by the Judah injury news. “I guess we’ll just keep training, but I wouldn’t mind a pick-up, tune-up fight between to stay busy,” he said.

Previously, Judah’s management team has urged former three-division world champion Mosley (44-5, 37 KOs) to submit to thorough pre-fight testing for all performance-enhancing drugs, given Mosley’s past connection to Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte, and disclosures by Conte that Mosley knew he was taking designer steroids and the blood-doping drug EPO before his 2003 victory over Oscar De La Hoya.

Golden Boy said tickets can be refunded where they were purchased.

 lance.pugmire@latimes.com