Following his victory over Manny Pacquiao on Saturday in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was adamant about his future at the post-fight news conference.
He planned to fight once more in September and then he would hang up the gloves, he stated. He also noted in his post-fight interview with HBO’s Max Kellerman that he is approaching 40 years of age and said even leading up to the super-fight that his love for boxing just isn’t there anymore and wouldn’t miss the sport when he retires.
But, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has done the same thing twice in his future Hall of Fame career – he retired and came back to fight more – he retired following a split-decision victory over Oscar De La Hoya in 2007. However, that didn’t last long. After Ricky Hatton’s fourth-round knockout of Jose Luis Castillo, who many thought defeated Mayweather in their first of two clashes, Hatton went on to say, “There was more action in the four rounds of this fight than Floyd showed in his entire career.” Well, Floyd wasn’t too happy about that and responded accordingly.
“I was retired, but I’ll sign to fight Hatton right now. I’ve tried to let the things he said about me slide by, but now he’s dissing me on national TV and I want to shut him up. I’ve never wanted to hurt an opponent like I do Hatton,” Mayweather said. “Ricky Hatton cannot fight. He throws one punch at a time and then holds. Hatton is the most overrated fighter of the last 25 years.”
After retiring once more, Mayweather came back after a 21-month layoff to face Juan Manuel Marquez, who was moving from lightweight to welterweight, in an 144-pound catch-weight. Mayweather was overweight at 146 pounds and went on to completely white-wash the smaller Marquez.
This could be the case, once again, with Floyd Mayweather. Results from the pay-per-view sales of the highly-anticipated fight have yet to be released, but the numbers could exceed four million and could even eclipse five million. It most certainly could be the reason why the defensive mastermind has decided to reconsider his plans, in a text he sent to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
On Tuesday, ‘SportsCenter’ tweeted that Mayweather told Smith that he would be willing to fight Manny Pacquiao again. In a second tweet, Mayweather also said he would be willing to wait for Pacquiao to heal from the torn rotator cuff injury he suffered during training camp, which has been blamed for Pacquiao’s less than Pacquiao type of performance.
Pacquiao’s failure to disclose his shoulder injury has left the eight-division world champion in hot water. In a pre-fight questionnaire, one of the questions read, “Have you had any injury to your shoulders, elbows, or hands that needed evaluation or examination? If yes, explain.” Pacquiao checked ‘no.’
Before the fight on Saturday, Pacquiao asked to be allowed to take of shot of Toradol to numb the pain, but the request was rejected by the Nevada State Athletic Commission because it was the first time they had heard of the injury.
Pacquiao will be out from nine months to a year with the surgery. If Mayweather is willing to wait for Pacquiao to heal, he could potentially extend his career to as far as May 2016.
A rematch cannot be ruled out completely, but after the fans paid extortionately high prices for the first fight, which failed to live up to the hype and the close to six years of waiting, I’m willing to say that a rematch has ‘Fat Chance’ written all over it.
