By Allan Fox: Fans are now wondering whether Floyd Mayweather Jr’s exhibition match against YouTuber Logan Paul is still on after UFC boss Dana White posted a photo on Twitter of him, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and RIZIN CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara posing for a photo on Wednesday.
With Oscar De La Hoya choosing to return to the ring for an exhibition match in July on Triller, Mayweather now has a superb option for him to make massive money in a rematch against the ‘Golden Boy’ star.
The revenue that Mayweather could potentially make in a second fight with De La Hoya, who he beat by a 12 round split decision in June 2007, would probably greatly surpass what he can make facing Logan Paul.
If the rematch between De La Hoya and Mayweather were a real fight and not an exhibition, it would increase the chances of the two bringing in a lot of money.
The RIZIN boss Sakakibara is the one that worked with Mayweather (50-0,27 KOs) three years ago on December 31st, 2018, to put together a lucrative exhibition fight against Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa, a match that ended in the first round with Floyd dropping the smaller fighter three times en route to scoring a first-round knockout.
In the aftermath of the farce, Mayweather was highly criticized for the exhibition match, which he is said to have earned $9 million.
HOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIT!!!!!! WTF is goin on here @FloydMayweather @nobu_sakakibara pic.twitter.com/bwttYUBsv8
— danawhite (@danawhite) April 7, 2021
Many boxing fans wonder whether Mayweather will join up with UFC president White and RIZIN CEO Nobuyuki to put on an exhibition.
This could be potentially bad news for YouTuber Logan Paul, who was supposed to fight Mayweather in February in an exhibition, but the match was postponed.
There’s speculation that the interest in the Mayweather vs. Logan Paul fight has been so low that the match might be scrapped altogether. Mayweather, 44, has been dealing with a tremendous amount of backlash ever since he revealed that he would be taking on Logan next, as it’s a fight that makes no sense at all.
The YouTuber Paul looked dreadfully bad in his pro debut against fellow YouTuber KSI, losing to him by a six-round split decision in November 2019.
Logan’s inability to beat a non-boxer in KSI made it clearer that Mayweather was making a big mistake in choosing to fight him, as the knowledgable boxing fans view the match as a joke not worthy of spending what little money they have during the pandemic on a mismatch.
Mayweather vs. Paul might have worked before the pandemic when the U.S economy was going strong, but now it looks like a wrong-headed move by Floyd, who has suddenly become tone-deaf for the fans want to see from him.
It would be a great idea for Mayweather to cancel the exhibition with Logan Paul altogether and focus on fighting someone that will attract pay-per-view buys.
Unfortunately, Mayweather probably won’t interest fans if he focuses on a Youtuber or another hapless MMA fighter with no boxing ability.
Yeah, Mayweather made massive money fighting former UFC star Conor McGregor in 2017, but that fight turned off many fans who saw it was not worth the money they spent.
It was a boring fight in which Mayweather fought slowly, as if he was in first gear the entire contest, and appeared to carry an exhausted and badly over-matched McGregor before stopping him in the 10th round.
The fans were burned badly by that underwhelming Mayweather-McGregor fight, and it’s likely they’ve learned their lesson not to purchase Mayweather’s circus events against MMA fighters.
“The world imploded after we were talking about doing some things together,” said Dana White to ESPN a year ago.