Former WBA/WBC welterweight and WBC junior middleweight world boxing champion Ricardo "El Matador" Mayorga has decided to bring his skills in the sweet science to a mixed martial arts fight.

The 35-year-old pugilist signed on with upstart MMA promotion "Shine Fights" and plans to debut on a pay-per-view card by the end of the year.

The Nicaragua native compiled a record of 29-7-1 (with 23 knockouts) during his sixteen year boxing career. He wasn't fighting bums either. Mayorga's list of opponents includes names like Felix "Tito" Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya, "Sugar" Shane Mosley, Cory Spinks (son of former heavyweight champ Leon), the late Vernon Forrest, Andrew "Six Heads" Lewis and others.

Last September, in his most recent bout, Mayorga was stopped late in the fight by Mosley. In fact, there was only one second remaining in the twelfth frame when the fight was called. The fight was extremely close, but the judge's scorecards showed Mayorga would have dropped a split decision had the final bell sounded.

"El Matador" was set to face undefeated junior-middleweight prospect Alfredo Angulo earlier this year, but he backed out of the fight after having problems cutting weight.

His strengths are that he has an extremely durable chin to go along with two very powerful hands. He likes to brawl and won't be scared to trade leather with anyone on the Shine roster. The potential weaknesses are obviously his ground game, his wrestling, and basically all the martial arts besides boxing.

Some of the other fighters on the Shine roster include Yves Edwards, Micah Miller, Roan Carniero, Ryan Healy, Junior Assuncao, Gideon Ray, Jean Silva and others.

Look for future announcement regarding Mayorga's future in the coming weeks.