Mayweather might fight again “for a couple more bucks”

By Boxing News - 10/01/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he might come out of retirement for a little more money. He’s leaving his options open after he tried and failed to make a fight between him and UFC star Conor McGregor recently. Mayweather wanted to make the fight with the 28-year-old McGregor for a pay-per-view fight that would have taken place inside a boxing ring, but he couldn’t put the fight together.

McGregor reportedly would have wanted 50% of the revenue for the fight. That obviously would have taken a big slice out of the payday that Mayweather would have received, making it likely that he wouldn’t have made the kind of money he made in the past for his fights. That wouldn’t work obviously.

Mayweather can make a good payday fighting boxers like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman or Kell Brook and take the bigger slice of the pie. A rematch against Manny Pacquiao would make Mayweather a ton of money if he could get the bigger slice of the revenue. However, the longer Mayweather waits before making a comeback the less money he’ll likely get, because fans forget stars when they stay outside of the ring for a long time.

Additionally, fans want to see relevant fighters, not old timers hobbling around the ring. With Mayweather having been out of boxing for a year now, there will be questions from a lot of fans whether it’s worth paying to see an old and inactive fighter.

Mayweather said to TMZ.com about a match against McGregor:

“The fight is very difficult to make. I tried to make the fight, but it didn’t happen. You live and learn. I’m loving retirement.”

I don’t think you can sell a fight between Mayweather and McGregor to non-MMA fans. If your focus is on boxing, then you’re not going to know or care who McGregor is. Mayweather would making a mistake if he fought him, because he would be dependent on MMA fans to bring in the money for the fight on pay-per-view, and those same fans would understand the fight is a mismatch due to the fight bring inside the ring rather than the octagon.

When asked if he would come out of retirement to resume his boxing career, Mayweather said, “For a couple of more bucks. You just don’t know. I’m an old man. I did it for 20 years. I had a great career.”

The only fights that will make Mayweather huge money in boxing are matches against Pacquiao, Saul Canelo Alvarez, Miguel Cotto and Gennady Golovkin. Mayweather wouldn’t make big money fighting Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Amir Khan, Brook, or Jessie Vargas. Those are not big fights. the fights that would be big are against the bigger names.

Golovkin would be a tremendous fight for Mayweather, even though Golovkin isn’t a PPV. Fans would want to see Mayweather fight Golovkin because they would want to see if Mayweather would get knocked out. Golovkin has so much power that he might break Mayweather like he did with Kell Brook. If you saw the Golovkin-Brook fight, you’ll have noticed that Brook did alright for a little while until suffering a broken eye socket.

Brook was making Golovkin miss the entire fight, but he couldn’t make him miss with everything he threw. Something got through Brook’s defenses and it caused the injury. I don’t think Mayweather would be willing to earn the most money possible in a comeback, because it would be too risky.

Mayweather would likely play it safe if he came back to the sport by taking on someone like Danny Garcia. That’s not a fight would sell big numbers, because it’s too much like Mayweather vs. Berto. Garcia is probably even less popular now than Berto, because fans have become disillusioned with Garcia’s career due to all the soft matches in the last two years.
Here are Mayweather’s best options for money fights if he comes back:

1. Manny Pacquiao

2. Saul Canelo Alvarez

3. Gennady Golovkin

4. Miguel Cotto

5. Danny Garcia

The interest from fans in a second fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao could dry up depending on how Pacquiao looks in his fight against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas on November 5. If Pacquiao loses that fight or if he struggles to win, then there’s no point in Mayweather fighting him. Mayweather needs to make a decision soon about his career whether to return to the ring or not.