By Allan Fox:
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still saying he wants $100 million to return to the ring in the future. Mayweather has been retired since September of last year after his win over Andre Berto. Mayweather hasn’t said who he would plan on fighting for that $100M payday, and he also hasn’t said which network would be willing to pay him that kind of money.
Unless Mayweather is going to be fighting a rematch against Manny Pacquiao, his comeback fight will likely result in a huge loss for whatever network that signs him. The only fighter that Mayweather has mentioned recently in a favorable light is WBC welterweight champion David Garcia. However, Garcia isn’t a big name, and a fight against him would likely result in a fight that wouldn’t cover Mayweather $100 million that he wants for him to come back.
“You already know my numbers,” said Mayweather. “I talked about that when I was on TV the other day. Every time I get out there and compete at the highest level. My number is, of course, $100 million or better. I like I can demand that because I’ve broken all records in the sport of boxing. A lot of legendary champions are extremely jealous of me.”
Mayweather might be pricing himself out by saying upfront that he wants $100 million. Asking for that kind of money without even having an opponent is likely a dead end for a network. Mayweather did make big money for his fights against Pacquiao and Canelo, but those were big stars. Now that Mayweather has beaten both of them, I don’t think it’s realistic to assume that the boxing public will pay to see those match-ups a second time.
The fans already know that Canelo and Pacquiao can’t beat Mayweather, and what we saw of Canelo last Saturday night with him struggling for four rounds against Amir Khan isn’t going to change the minds of the fans. Mayweather needs a new big name opponent if he’s to have any chance of getting his $100 million payday, and Danny Garcia is not probably not going to get the job done.
I think in this case, if Mayweather wants the big $100M payday, he’s going to need to earn it the hard way by facing Gennady Golovkin, the terror from the middleweight division. There might be some pain involved in Mayweather getting his $100 million payday, and he might wind up getting knocked out cold. But he has a chance of getting that kind of money if he’s willing to step inside the ring with Golovkin and risk getting knocked out.
Just last weekend, Mayweather said he could beat Golovkin easily if he were able to make the weight for his division. Well, Mayweather doesn’t need to worry about that because Golovkin is saying he’ll drain down to Mayweather’s division at 154 to fight him. Mayweather held two titles at junior middleweight as of September of last year, so he can’t make excuses for him not being able to make the weight.
One of the networks would be sticking their necks out if they gave Mayweather $100 million to fight someone like Danny Garcia, because that’s not a $100 million fight. Mayweather will need to take a big risk by fighting Golovkin in order for the networks not to wind up taking a huge bath on the fight.