$32M for 36 minutes. I'm waiting for the PPV numbers to come in so I can make another $38M on the back-end. Making it a grand total of $70M.

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) May 6, 2014

By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) picked up a cool $32 million for just 36 minutes of work for his performance last Saturday night in beating WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather is now set to make an additional $38 million once the pay-per-view numbers come in from Showtime. $70 million for a fight against Maidana, which really wasn’t a big name, is very good money for boxing’s biggest star.

The man can make big bank fighting lesser stars, and it just makes you wonder how much Mayweather could wind up with if he stays around for another 3-5 more years in fighting twice a year. If Mayweather were to continue to fight twice per year and keep winning while making $70 for each fight, he’d retire with an additional $700 million to go along with with his estimated $200 million net worth that he has now. That’s very close to $1 billion. No fighter in boxing has ever made anything close to that figure, and Mayweather could be the first if he were to fight another 5-6 years without losing.

Mayweather showed mercy in giving Maidana a handicap last Saturday night by electing to slug with him. This is something that Mayweather cannot continue to do, because it causes him to take needless head shots and punches to the head could age him physically in terms of the boxing game. From here on out, Mayweather needs to listen to his father and put on boxing clinics against his opponents in order to win without taking punishment. It doesn’t matter if some boxing fans aren’t happy that they’re not seeing a blood bath. The point is Mayweather needs to use his own fighting style against his opponents, and not fight to the level of his opponents like he did last Saturday night. It’s not Mayweather’s fault that Maidana was a 12-1 underdog. Anyone they put in with Mayweather would be a huge underdog at this point. There’s nobody in the welterweight division that can give Mayweather a decent fight when he’s fighting with his own game, and not choosing to fight with his opponent’s style.

Mayweather needs to forget about Maidana, and move on. Maidana had his chance and he couldn’t even beat Mayweather with him standing against the ropes for 12 rounds. A rematch likely won’t bring in good money, because fans already know now that Mayweather will bring his A-game and boxing circles around Maidana. What Mayweather needs is someone like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Miguel Cotto. Those guys bring in the fans. None of the welterweights are worth fighting now because they don’t have the fan base to make it worthwhile for Mayweather to fight them. If Manny Pacquiao leaves Top Rank, then he’s a possibility, but he’s very likely to sign his final contract with them in the coming months and remove himself permanently from a future opponent of Mayweather.