Stephen Espinoza doubts Mayweather will come back

By Boxing News - 05/05/2016 - Comments

floyd3By Jeff Aranow: Stephen Espinoza, the vice president of Sports with Showtime, seriously doubts Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be coming out of retirement to resume his boxing career. Mayweather told Showtime’s Jim Gray last Saturday that he’s not ruling out a comeback in the future, albeit if he can receive a nine-figure payday in the process.

Espinoza says they ask Mayweather all the time if he’s interested in returning to the sport, but thus far he’s not saying he will.

If Mayweather does return to boxing, he would need to select Manny Pacquiao or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in order to have a chance of getting the nine-figure payday he wants for the fight. Selecting Danny Garcia or Adrien Broner would likely result in Showtime taking a huge loss if they were to give Mayweather the nine-figure payday he wants as part of his requirement in coming back.

Mayweather vs. Garcia is probably a fight that does less than one million buys. Garcia is a champion in name only right now. His unbeaten 32-0 record is very questionable after three controversial decision wins over Robert Guerrero, Lamont Peterson and Mauricio Herrera. The problem that Mayweather has is he’s burned his bridges with his fight against Manny Pacquiao last year and his subsequent selection of Andre Berto for his follow-up fight rather than one of the top welterweights.

Mayweather lost a lot of fans with those two moves, and the only we he can bring them back is to take a really dangerous fight like Gennady Golovkin. I don’t think a fight against Canelo or Pacquiao would do the job right now for Mayweather because he already beat them.

The worst the sport of boxing needs right now is Mayweather to make a comeback against Pacquiao and to have the fight sold for $100 on PPV once again, and then have it fail to produce an exciting fight. A second fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao could kill PPV for the sport for a while. However, a fight between Mayweather and Golovkin would be a big sale because Golovkin would force Mayweather to fight for survival. He couldn’t keep Golovkin off by throwing straight right hands, running or tying him up. Mayweather would need to fight. His shoulder roll defense wouldn’t work because Golovkin would be looking to take him out with body shots.

“He’s consistently said, he’s happily retired, even in the interview he gave on air,” said Espinoza to IFL TV about Mayweather. “He said he’s happy to be retired and he’s happy to be a promoter. But at the same time, you never know. Personally, if I were to bet, we won’t see him back. He’s spent 19 years in the sport, and that’s two careers for most fighters. That’s a lifetime of blood, sweat and tears in the sport. It wouldn’t surprise me if he said 19 years is enough. We ask him every opportunity. Respectfully, we’re going to continue to ask, but so far, he’s shutting the door in our face,” said Espinoza.

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Mayweather probably recognizes that if he makes a comeback to the sport, he’ll need to fight someone really good to get the nine-figure payday he wants, and there’s too much risk if he does that.