Mayweather Says Being The First Boxer to make “Nine Figures In One Night” Was Always His Goal

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Young Mayweather JrIn 1996 Floyd Mayweather Jr. stood at amongst a crowded MGM Grand for a fight he wasn’t headlining. That year Mike Tyson fought three straight times at the MGM Grand and ended the year with a super fight against Evander Holyfield, a 19-year-old Mayweather thought he’d never see the house so packed again, but he had faith that he could do it.

“Even from day one when I was with Bob Arum, I said I wanted to work extremely hard to get to a certain point in my career,” Mayweather Jr. said in a conference call before his fight. “Which is to get to a point to be the first fighter to ever make nine figures in one night.”

This is going to be the biggest fight in history according to Mayweather and experts and they are right, if only in terms of dollars. Historically this fight does not have the same type of social implications others have had, but it still manages to transcend the sport.

Mayweather said he does not have put pressure on himself by thinking of this as the biggest fight of his life, although he’s quick to remind everyone that it is the biggest payday of his career.

With the exception of the pride in his enormous payday, Mayweather was just a poised and humble in the conference call as he was during the rest of the pre-fight build up. The bravado that got him to this point is basically unnecessary now. Before it was to build him up and make himself known, now everyone’s attention will be on him come May 2nd.

“It’s more like I did all that loud talking and everything to get to a certain point.” Mayweather said. “I’ve still got a lot of personality, I did what I had to do to get to a certain point in my career, and that’s what I did.  It was a brilliant game plan.”

While Mayweather is selling himself as calm and subdued, he said that he saw shock and awe in the eyes of his opponent when the two were able to size each other up at a basketball game in Miami.

“You can read a guy’s body language,” Mayweather said. “When Pacquiao first saw me in Miami, he didn’t expect to see me. He didn’t expect to see me over there at the basketball game. He looked shocked, like, ‘Damn, he is taller than me.  He’s bigger than what I thought he was.”

Mayweather has been asked over and over how he sees the fight playing out. To him it is routine and the game plan is simple, win.

With nothing left to achieve but defeating his nemesis, the outcome of the fight will play a factor in Mayweather’s legacy, to some degree. But to Mayweather, he’s already solidified himself as the best to prize fighter ever. It is a bold suggestion but as Mayweather pointed out, Muhammad Ali made similar claims to greatness.

“There’s no disrespect to Ali,” Mayweather said. “I just feel like I’m the best, no different from how he called himself ‘The Greatest,’ I call myself ‘TBE.”

Mayweather said he doesn’t mind the criticisms that come with comparing himself to Ali. He see’s it as part of the process of passing the torch.

“I couldn’t care less about the backlash,” Mayweather said. “(Ali) probably got criticized at one particular time when he said that he was the greatest.  He felt like he was better than Sugar Ray Robinson . . . I’m pretty sure there’s going to be another fighter that’s going to come along and say he’s better than Floyd Mayweather and he’s going to get criticized.”

Mayweather has not changed much about training for this mega fight, save for the added help from Alex Ariza and a new cryo-therapy regimen to help heal his body from his legendary workouts. Mayweather said he is confident as ever in the work that has got him this far.

“You don’t want to over-train,” Mayweather said. “You want to train to where you know you’re completely ready.  Go out there and be at just 100 percent.  As far as this training camp, I’ve trained extremely hard.  I believe that we’ll just see how everything plays out.”