There is tremendous speculation that a second fight between Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. and Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao is being negotiated. A story was published in the Philippines, the country Pacquiao calls home and currently holds political office, which reported that Manny himself admitted negotiations were ongoing. However, those reports were debunked by Bob Arum of Top Rank (Pacquiao’s promoter) as well as Mayweather.
Yet, the rumors have continued even without any real evidence. In fact, there are reports that Floyd is unofficially holding a date in 2016 at the new Las Vegas arena which is scheduled to be open by Spring of next year.
Furthermore, the fact that Pacquiao has gone without any official announcement regarding his next opponent has fueled speculation even more, despite reports that Timothy Bradley will get a third fight with Pacquiao in order to settle their rubber match.
Without crushing the hopes of the misinformed, it is likely that Pacquiao will fight Bradley, and if not him then it will be Terrence Crawford. Pacquiao will fight Amir Khan before Mayweather Jr.
As for Mayweather, he will likely stay retired.
If he does attempt a comeback, Pacquiao is not the fight he should take. Of course, it would go a long way in further padding his bank account. But there really is no fight out there for Floyd that truly captures the hearts and imaginations of fight fans.
The highly reputable trainer Robert Garcia out of the Robert Garcia Academy in Oxnard, California – a trainer that has gone against Floyd in the past when he prepared Marcos Maidana for his May 2014 fight and subsequent rematch later that year with the “pound for pound” king – knows better than most how untouchable Floyd truly is. In fact, Garcia is one of the few trainers that has had success preparing his fighter and strategizing against Floyd.
Garcia believes there is no reason for Floyd to come back, at least not right now. For Garcia, it boils down to one simple fact, which is the lack of compelling opposition for Floyd.
“He’s got nobody to fight. He already beat Pacquiao, that’s the fight everybody wanted to see. He beat Pacquiao, I think that should’ve been his last fight. But unless we have to wait a couple years for younger fighters to be huge and then the fans demand it, right now there’s nobody,” Garcia said in an interview with Fight Hub TV in an interview published on their YouTube channel.
Garcia’s only criticism of Floyd stems from his farewell fight, which he believes should’ve been his Pacquiao win considering it was the culmination of an incredible demand and financially lucrative promotion. It would’ve been better for Floyd to go out after the biggest win of his career as opposed to the farce that was Andre Berto, which took place this past September following the Pacquiao fight.
The Berto fight proved many factors, but there are two specific facts that seem pertinent to Garcia’s opinion. First, the choice of Berto highlighted the fact that fans would never fully agree on a truly competitive fight for Floyd from this point moving forward in his career. The only way fans would unite for a Floyd opponent is out of protest, otherwise, they will continue to argue and remain separated on Floyd’s choice of opponent.
The other factor was the lack of business the Mayweather-Berto fight did from a financial standpoint. It was a significant PPV buy number by comparison to the average fight, but it paled in comparison to most Floyd PPVs, proving that Floyd does not stand to gain any real financial achievements by continuing to fight in such a seemingly uncompetitive welterweight and junior middleweight market.
Garcia admitted that a younger challenger is always on the verge and we are at a point in boxing, especially in the welterweight division, where the division is talented enough and young enough that an obvious competitor will undoubtedly be realized in the coming years. However, that isn’t really fair to Floyd who will turn 39 this year, actually in a couple months.
Mayweather is running out of time before he starts to risk a real decline. Regardless, a Floyd loss that comes anytime after two birthdays and an obvious layoff of more than two years will have an asterisk by it, even if it is undeserved.
If Floyd is going to comeback, he needs to do it this year after a lengthy rest but before the risk of deterioration.
Garcia believes there is only one way Mayweather can create a scenario where the competitive nature of his opposition isn’t drawn into question and criticized. The only way Floyd will find true competition is to challenge the laws of physicality and move up in weight to the 160-pound division (middleweight).
“There’s nobody for Mayweather unless he wanted a challenge and go up in weight to 160lbs, but he doesn’t have to. But that would be the only thing, if he wants to challenge himself to winning a title at 160.”
You’ll notice that Garcia did not mention Golovkin, although that would be the biggest test of them all. However, Garcia presumably left out any specific names based on the fact that any step up in weight would suffice. Regardless of an opponent, Floyd fighting at middleweight and capturing any of the middleweight titles would be a tremendous feat. However, Floyd could easily call for a catch-weight below the 160 limit, thus draining his opponent to the point of evening up the fight.
At this point, Floyd is more likely to continue fighting twice a year for the next five years than he is fighting even one more time at middleweight, against any middleweight, unless it’s Canelo.
