By Allan Fox: Judging by some of the comments Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) has made recently about Gennady Golovkin, Amir Khan and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, I think it’s only a matter of time before he comes out of retirement to try and keep himself in the limelight. Mayweather says he has no desire to return to the ring, but his recent remarks say otherwise.
Mayweather said this past week that he would beat Golovkin if he fought him. Here’s specifically what Mayweather said to Fighthype.com”
“Once I fought and beat everybody, first it was, ‘Mayweather was scared of this guy!’ What I do? I beat him! ‘Mayweather’s scared of that guy!’ I beat him! ‘Mayweather’s scared of this guy!’ I beat him! It’s getting to a point that, if me and Triple G would have fought when I was fighting, I would’ve beat him and then guess what! There’s going to be an excuse. Now it’s time for me to go to 168.”
What does that tell you? I think Mayweather is starting to kick around the idea of coming back to fight the Kazakhstan star. All it might take for Mayweather to come out of retirement to face Golovkin is a bad performance from him against the unbeaten Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) on April 23 in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing.
If Golovkin struggles to beat the 25-year-old Wade, and if he looks flat-footed and slow on his feet, I think Mayweather will target him when he comes out of retirement. However, if Golovkin shows the same kind of one-punch power that we saw in his fights against Willie Monroe Jr., David Lemieux and Martin Murray, then I see Mayweather fighting somebody else like Danny Garcia when he eventually comes out of retirement.
Make no mistake; Mayweather will be coming out of retirement soon in my view. I think he’s going to be looking to win his 50th fight. Mayweather is currently 49-0, and I think he intentionally retired at that point in order to attract enough interest before he finally comes back and wins his 50th victory.
Right now, Mayweather is tied with Rocky Marciano at 49-0. Mayweather isn’t going to leave it like that because he’s going to want to break the record, and he’s definitely going to want to get his 50th win. If you had a choice of retiring at 49-0 or 50-0, what would you do?
It’s a no-brainer that you return for your 50th win, especially if you have the chance to make over $40 million for one fight no matter who you fight. Could you imagine Hank Aaron retiring with 713 lifetime homeruns before he could tie the late great Babe Ruth? I don’t think Mayweather is going to retire without getting his 50th win. He’s even mentioned it recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gpqRDoiyvs
Where Mayweather is in a bind is he’s got to face a quality opponent if he wants to get the attention from boxing fans when/if he comes out of retirement. In other words, Mayweather can’t fight another poor opponent like Andre Berto if he wants to get the respect from the boxing community.
Mayweather recently commented that if he were to face WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia on the same date as the Canelo vs. Amir Khan fight, that they would need to move off the date. I don’t think they would. However, Garcia is not a big enough name to get the attention from fans. If Mayweather picks Garcia instead of Golovkin, Keith Thurman, Canelo or Porter for his comeback fight, then he’s going to take a lot of heat from the fans, because Garcia isn’t seen as a formidable opponent in the eyes of the hardcore boxing fans.
If Mayweather believes that Danny Garcia is a dangerous opponent that will win himself respect from the boxing world, then he needs to sit down and talk to some hardcore fans to find out what they think of Garcia. They’ll likely tell Mayweather straight that Garcia isn’t good enough to catch the imagination from the fans. It’s going to take a more talented fighter than Garcia for Mayweather to gain the respect from the boxing world.
If he faces Garcia, then fans are going to think that Mayweather is cherry picking another soft opponent because Garcia still has unfinished business with Lamont Peterson and Mauricio Herrera.
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