Merchant expects Mayweather back in 2016 for big payday

By Boxing News - 10/12/2015 - Comments

Floyd MayweatherBy Allan Fox: Boxing fans are wondering whether Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) will return to the ring in 2016 to resume his career and go after win No.50 against someone like Manny Pacquiao.

Former HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant believes that we’ll be seeing the 38-year-old Mayweather next year, because he thinks that he’ll be looking for a big $100 million payday against someone like Pacquiao or someone similar that can give him that big money payday.

Merchant thinks that a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch could work if Pacquiao defeats a big name in his next fight or if Pacquiao gets beaten by someone good. But with Pacquiao looking to fight the likes of Juan Manuel Marquez, Amir Khan, Terence Crawford or the Brandon Rios vs. Tim Bradley winner, those would be big enough fights for Mayweather for him to get a big $100 million payday.

For Mayweather to make the big money, he’s going to need to fight someone like Gennady Golovkin or Pacquiao. The only way a Mayweather-Golovkin fight would work is if Golovkin defeats IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux in their fight this Saturday on October 17th, and then turns around and defeats the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight. But I have my doubts whether Mayweather will want to fight Golovkin because he seems to be preoccupied with not taking punishment at this point in his career.

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Mayweather spoke about that a lot before his recent mismatch against Andre Berto, which seemed to be one of the reasons why he selected such a soft opponent.

“I think the general feeling is that he’ll [Mayweather] try to come out and win his 50th if somebody emerges who can generate a third as much as the last fight” said Merchant via the-newshub.com. “Maybe it’s Pacquiao if he can go out and beat somebody really good or maybes its somebody who goes out and beats Pacquiao really good.

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I don’t see Mayweather getting a big $100 million payday unless he fights Pacquiao again, and even then I don’t think he’s going to get that kind of money. I think it would be a fight that would bring in maybe 1.4 million buys, but definitely not 2 million or more. I think the boxing fans would see a second Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight as nothing but a money-grab for Mayweather.

I don’t think Mayweather quite realizes how bad he made himself look in his last two fights against Berto and Pacquiao. He didn’t fight hard against Pacquiao in fighting a safety first fight.

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The fans that paid huge money to see the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight felt ripped off because neither guy pit in much effort to entertain the fans. After that, Mayweather made things worse by selecting Berto and putting the mismatch on PPV on Showtime rather than making it free for the boxing fans to see it in order to pay them back for the money they paid to see the dull Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

“I’d love to see Crawford fight him but Crawford is not as well-known as say Amir Khan or Pacquiao,” Merchant said. “But if somebody emerges I guess the conventional wisdom is yes, Mayweather will give it a go for a 9 figure pay day.”



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