Is Mayweather’s retirement talk a marketing ploy to increase PPV buys for Maidana fight?

By Boxing News - 05/01/2014 - Comments

floyd7772By Dan Ambrose: Recently Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) has been dropping hints that he may walk away from boxing after this Saturday’s unification bout against WBA 147lb champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. But as David Mayo from Mlive sees it, Mayweather could be using the retirement talk as a way of increasing interest in the Maidana fight in order to get as many fans interested in that fight as possible. What better way to do that than to say that this could be his last fight.

This is something that works, both in sports and with celebrity singers. They let the public know ahead of time that this will be their last performance, and the public responds by coming out in huge numbers in wanting to see that person one more time and become part of history. Additionally, the fans end up purchasing a lot of memorabilia due to their belief that this is the last time they’ll see this famous person.

“I’m contemplating everyday getting out the sport now,” said Mayweather. “I’m very, very comfortable.”

If Mayweather is serious about wanting to get out of the sport after this fight, it would be a disappointing bout for him to retire on. There are arguably bigger names that Mayweather could fight in his last match of his career, such as the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Erislandy Lara fight. Mayweather would do really well by facing the winner of that fight or the winner of the Sergio Martinez vs. Miguel Cotto bout. He could bring the winner of that fight down to 154 to fight them. Forget about Manny Pacquiao though. If he re-signs with Top Rank, then he’s made his choice that he doesn’t plan on fighting Mayweather. You can’t blame Mayweather for not fighting Pacquiao before he retires, because he’s already said he won’t fight him until he’s clear of Bob Arum.

Mayweather will need to keep talking retirement in the last two days before Saturday if he wants to drive up interest among fans for his fight against Maidana. The casual fans of the sport probably haven’t heard yet that this could be his last fight, so fight likely won’t get increased PPV sales from fans believing this will be the last time they see Mayweather fight. To get that kind of response from fans, a fighters has to start talking retirement as soon as the press tours start. It’s got be one of the slogans for the fight so that fans know that this could be the last time they see Mayweather. They didn’t do that here. Mayweather has only been hinting about it, and it’s probably not going to drive up PPV sales.



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