By Mark Calooke: This week it has been announced that Floyd Mayweather (43-0, KO’s 26) has signed a 30 month, six fight deal with Showtime. This has ended a long a prosperous period at HBO. Showtime or HBO, it doesn’t really matter. Floyd Mayweather will pull in the viewers and money as always. I don’t know how much Mayweather is being paid for his signature, but it must be alot to make such a silly mistake.
Mayweather will turn 36 this month. This isn’t really old for a defensive boxer, but Mayweather has already shown signs of fading. It’s fair to say that he hasn’t taken a truly dangerous fight since 2005 when he faced Gatti. Floyd was incredible that night but has since remained on top by avoiding the toughest fights. Evidence of this comes in the form of Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley. Fans were calling for Mayweather to fight Mosley 6 years before the fight happened, and 4 years with Cotto. Eventually Mayweather faced both but was stunned early on before dominating Mosley. He struggled against a faded Cotto but again won.
This makes me wonder what the future holds for Floyd Mayweather. The deal is great for Showtime without a doubt. That doesn’t mean it is good for the money man. He is at the age where he should take one fight at a time. Many fans have called on him to take the hard fights. If Floyd tries to do that for 6 fights he will lose. For a number of years I felt that Mayweather was taking easy fights despite having the talent to beat most of the boxer in or around his weight division. But the last few years I see it as a ploy to keep winning and staying away from the young fighters that would now win.
Floyd is still his own promoter. Showtime will simply air his fights, not pick them. So I don’t think we will see much of a change in path. The best we can hope for is one or two great fights amongst the six.
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