Will Mayweather return to boxing?

By Angel Flowers - 09/30/2016 - Comments

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By Angel Flowers: I am sure that unbeaten superstar Floyd “Money” Mayweather will soon be returning to the sport of boxing and get his 50th win. Ever since Mayweather retired many in the boxing world thought he would not be satisfied unless he had 50 wins despite him saying he was out of the boxing game for good.

Of course, by being Mayweather many people are going to express they want to fight him because it is a low risk high reward type of fight. Mayweather does not pose a health threat with his power and his opponent is guaranteed a career defining payday like the ones Marcos Maidana, Andre Berto and Robert Guerrero received.

Mayweather has expressed interest in fighting the following people but I honestly only see him fighting the one person he didn’t name.

Conor McGregor is a star in MMA who has fought across different weight classes in order to gain his superstardom. He has expressed an interest in fighting Mayweather and I am sure the fight would sell extremely well. Mayweather for his part has also expressed interest in the bout, as he realizes it would not just be on him to sell the fight, McGregor is a showman in his own right. Unfortunately, I don’t see this fight happening at all. For one Mayweather has beaten the best boxing has had to offer and have fought numerous former champions beating them all easily. McGregor has to know this and would most likely not want to be embarrassed inside a boxing ring. I seriously doubt he could bring Mayweather to the MMA world so I think this fight has zero chance of happening despite what Mayweather says. The next fighter he has expressed interest in fighting is longtime foe Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao.

Mayweather and Pacquiao were opponents in the most watched pay per view of all time in one of the most anticipated matches of my generation in their fight last year in May 2015. I saw that Pacquiao was too short to fight Mayweather who was known for keeping opponents at arm’s length. Pacquiao gave the reason for losing as him having an injured shoulder, but I along with many other boxing experts cannot see a different result if these two were to meet again. Pacquiao is courageous but his physical limits just does not enable him to beat someone of Mayweather’s class. Finally, Mayweather has recently talked about facing middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

This is a fight I really wouldn’t hold my breath for despite Mayweather mentioning it earlier this week. GGG has already moved away from his earlier words of willing to go down to 154 and now said he only fights at 160 when he was challenged at that weight by junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara. In fact he was not interested in taking a bigger fight than Lara when lineal middleweight champion offered him the fight at a pound heavier.

Mayweather would make money off of a fight with GGG, but he would be the one who would have to sell it. In his only American PPV fight against former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux in October 2015, Golovkin only drew 150,000 on HBO pay-per-view. Floyd could likely expect numbers similar to the 400,000 buys that he received during his farewell fight against Andre Berto in September 2015. Floyd wants Golovkin to up his stock by fighting longtime super middleweight Andre Ward, but I doubt that is going to happen. Mayweather feels if Golovkin could get a victory over a big name instead of the likes of Gabriel Rosado’s and Martin Murray’s of the world people would pay bigger money to see it. So far, Golovkin and his team have shown little interest in the Andre Ward fight.

After the way Golovkin was eating punches against the welterweight Kell “Special K” Brook in his last fight on September 10, I can see why Golovkin shown little interest in the Ward. I doubt Mayweather would want to waste his time with Golovkin right now. It’s a no win situation. If Mayweather wins the fight, people like myself will scream he cherry picked Golovkin. I mean, who exactly has Golovkin beaten? If Golovkin gets in a lucky punch and beats Mayweather, then his aura of invincibility would be gone. Mayweather would have made far less money than he would have if GGG had taken the Ward fight first and the taken Mayweather afterwards.

The fight I see happening though is one he hasn’t really mentioned that often between Mayweather and Danny Garcia. That fight would create a lot of news in the boxing world. Garcia is a bigger draw than everyone else at welterweight not named Pacquiao, and has the size to give Mayweather problems. Garcia has already had big fights in the past. In his last ten fights, he has beaten Zab Judah, Lucas Matthysse, Paulie Malignaggi and Lamont Peterson, who were all current or former champions when they fought him. This is in addition to beating boxing hall of Famer Erik Morales for the WBC and WBA super lightweight title. Garcia will not spend the fight running and holding which is just the way Mayweather likes it. If Floyd does return look for Garcia to get the nod.