Shane Mosley enjoys being the center of attention before a workout for the media on Monday in Pasadena, Calif. Photo / Gene Blevins-Hoganphotos-Golden Boy Promotions

PASADENA, Calif. – A reporter asked Shane Mosley as he had his hands wrapped during a media workout Monday morning at a martial-arts gym what he thought of the nasty comments Floyd Mayweather Jr. directed his way on HBO’s 24/7 series.

Mosley looked up and grinned. He wasn’t about to get sucked into a tit-for-tat exchange with his acid-tongued opponent on May 1 in Las Vegas. His focus is on winning the biggest fight of his career. Besides, it’s not his nature to bite back outside the ring.

He let his trainer, Naazim Richardson, do the biting for him.

“Shane is being the human being he was raised to be; Floyd is being the human being that he is,” said Richardson, who then made a reference to the woman handling Mayweather’s pubic relations, Kelly Swanson. ” ÔǪ Kelly can dress me up and put me on TV. Kelly can have me do a raffle to help children and all that. The minute Kelly walks away, though, that ass—- that I am is going to come back out because that’s who I am.”

Mosley, who made the two-hour trip from his training camp in Big Bear, really doesn’t care what Mayweather has to say.

“I don’t even know what he said,” Mosley said. “It doesn’t matter. My job is to focus on May 1. No, that doesn’t motivate me. My motivation comes from wanting to be the best. ÔǪ All the other stuff just gets in the way of the main goal.”

Mosley’s father and former trainer, Jack Mosley, suggested it might behoove his son to be more provocative because of its marketing value. It seems to have worked for Mayweather, who is probably the best-known American fighter.

Mosley said it isn’t going to happen.

“Everybody has his own personality,” he said. “I don’t really put on a fa├ºade. I’m not going to run my mouth just to run it. It has to have some meaning behind it. ÔǪ That’s just (Mayweather) promoting the fight or something. When I say something, you know I mean it.”

Fed up: I suggested to Richardson that Antonio Margarito, who Mosley knocked out in January of last year, was the perfect opponent for him. He was relatively slow and there to be hit.

“He came right to him,” I said and then Richardson interrupted. “Like he came to everybody else? He came right to (Miguel) Cotto. How’d that work out?”

Damn good point.

“You have to go back into a time capsule for a second,” he continued. “How many people were saying Margarito’s style was perfect for Shane before they fought? It’s not like people were looking at that fight and saying Shane was going to do this or that to him. When I went to camp with Shane, I told him, ‘The people who believe you’re going to win, I want to surprise them with the way you win.’ They thought he’d win by decision.

“That’s why we fight the fights. How many people here picked Buster Douglas (to beat Mike Tyson)?”

Where would a victory over Mayweather rank among Mosley’s accomplishments?

“This fight may be more important,” said Richardson, referring to May 1. “Margarito was the most-dangerous fight of Shane Mosley’s life. Margarito was changing people’s lifestyles, changing the way you talk to your children. We’re not facing that kind of danger now. I don’t take Mayweather lightly, though.”

Some people suggest that Mayweather won’t be able to handle Mosley’s considerable power. Richardson’s isn’t counting on that.

He said he and Mosley must train as if Mayweather has the best chin in boxing and be able to find other ways to beat him. However, he says it in a more-entertaining way.

“I’ve said it several times before and I’ll say it again: I expect Shane to come out and hit Mayweather in the mouth with a right hand,” he said. “Mayweather will sprout wings and a tail and turn into a dragon. I tell Shane to step away from his fireballs, step on his tail and punch him in the stomach and get him out of there.

“We’re prepared for anything that comes.”

OK.

Drug testing: Mosley said he’s been tested four times as part of the Olympic-style drug-testing program the fighters agreed upon.

“I think it’s been four times already,” he said, “two blood and four urine. They just said, ‘Are you ready to test?’ I said, ‘OK.’ They came at 11 (a.m.), 12, not during crazy hours or anything. I guess they’re trying not to disrupt training.”

Mosley, who admitted to taking steroids inadvertently before he fought Oscar De La Hoya in 2003, said he wouldn’t insist upon Olympic-style testing if he were to beat Mayweather and open negotiations to fight Manny Pacquiao.

“I don’t even want to deal with that type of stuff,” he said. “If the commission or whatever wants that type of testing, I’ll do it. If not, whatever. I’m just ready to fight.”

Mosley said he is contracted to give Mayweather a rematch if he wins on May 1.

First-hand knowledge: Talented young prospect Karl Dargan, another fighter of Richardson’s, has sparred with Mosley during this training camp. He said Mosley looks very sharp.

“He looks like he always does,” Dargan said. “Even though he’s had a year off since his last fight, a year and some change, he always stays in shape. Even when he doesn’t have a fight coming up, he’s training. The sharpness never really goes anywhere. I don’t think rust will play a role at all.”

Dargan said one thing that might surprise onlookers is the transformation Mosley undergoes once he steps through the ropes for sparring.

“Outside the ring, he gives you this smile and everything,” he said. “He’s a nice dude, a nice guy. Once he steps into the ring, though, he has a whole different demeanor. It’s a different story in the ring.”

He turns into a monster?

“Exactly,” Dargan said.

PPV record breaker? Some knowledgeable observers are predicting that Mayweather-Mosley will draw around 1.5 million pay-per-view buys.

The ever-optimistic Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, is thinking bigger than that. He has his eye on the all-time record of 2.4 million for Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.

“I always say records are made to be broken,” he said. “I really want to beat the 2.5-million-home mark. We still have three weeks to go before the fight. We’ll start seeing our campaigns kicking in. And HBO is supporting it in a big way with it’s 24/7.”

The slogan for the fight is: “Who R U Picking?” Golden Boy even has a Web Site with that name: whorupicking.com, at which fans can make their picks.

The idea is to get prospective pay-per-view customers engaged.

“We want to get America talking,” Schaefer said. “Who are you picking? I think once people are engaged they’re going to want to buy the pay per view because they want to see if they picked the right guy. That’s the idea behind the concept.”

Many people scoffed when Schaefer predicted Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez would draw 1 million buys and it exceeded that mark. A record-breaking night on May 1 is REALLY optimistic, though.

Hopkins-Jones Jr. PPV: Schaefer said the pay-per-view tally for the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones Jr. fight on April 3 is at about 130,000 but is expected to approach 150,000 after all the figures are in.

Golden Boy set 300,000 as its goal. However, some experts wondered whether it would exceed 100,000, which Schaefer said was overly pessimistic.

“They ARE two big names,” he said.