By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be facing Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa after all. Their nine-minute exhibition fight is now back on. There will be no kicking for the fight, which means it’s going to be a one-sided exhibition.
You can’t call it a real sporting event because it’s exhibition between the 5-time former world champion Mayweather and a fighter that has never laced up a pair of gloves before for a professional boxing match.
“It’s an exhibition. A small, nine minute exhibition,” Mayweather said to TMZ.com. No kicking. It’s going to be the highest paid exhibition ever. It’s a no-brainer. Just because I’m retired, I still make appearances around the world and make a ton of money.”
Mayweather vs. Nasukawa might not be worth televising in the U.S. If Mayweather is seen beating up on a little known kickboxer like Nasukawa, he could mess things up for himself for when he tries to sell a fight between him and UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov. There’s only so many of Mayweather’s circus level events that the fans are going to be willing to purchase before they put their foot down and stop buying them. It would be better for Mayweather to wait until he fights a well known MMA fighter like Khabib if he wants to keep selling his fights to the boxing and MMA public in the United States. Nasukawa is too much of an unknown for the fans in the States for it to be a worthwhile one to try and sell to the public.
Mayweather made a bundle last year beating UFC star Conor McGregor in a boxing match in August 2017. 4.4 million fans purchased the fight on PPV despite McGregor never having boxed in his life. The fans were expecting a competitive fight, and possibly even an upset. Instead, it was a mismatch from start to finish with Mayweather fighting at half speed against a tired looking McGregor. The Irish fighter didn’t pace himself, and was exhausted after just three rounds. The Nevada State Athletic Commission counted it as a real fight, which allowed Mayweather (50-0) to break Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record without having to face a professional boxer. At 41, Mayweather might have lost if he had been forced to fight one of the top welterweights in the division like Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter or Terence Crawford. Those are guys that Mayweather might have beaten when he was younger, but he old, slow and shot last year against McGregor.
UFC president Dana White says that Mayweather is going to need to agree to fight Khabib in the octagon for him to make $150 million facing him. Mayweather wants to fight Khabib inside a boxing ring under the rules of that sport, but White isn’t going to let that happen. White let Mayweather face the UFC’s biggest attraction in McGregor last year, and the result was bad for his fighter. McGregor lost the fight to Mayweather, and he’s only fought once since then in losing to Nurmagomdev this year. McGregor looked like a shell of his former self in that fight.
“The answer is ‘no.’ He’s gonna have to come here and get his ass whoopin’,” White said to TMZ about Mayweather fighting Khabib … “We did that last time. You gotta come here this time.”
It’s safe to say that Mayweather is going to reject the idea of fighting Khabib inside the octagon.