When Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0) defeated Manny Pacquiao this past May, there wasn’t much more the pound-for-pound stalwart could do to top that in his resume.
In terms of boxing, he beat the one guy that would have challenged him for being the best of this era in Manny Pacquiao. In terms of economics, he has already been part of the three biggest fights in boxing financially.
His fight with Manny Pacquiao broke records that may never be seen again financially speaking. Even more so if they did a rematch, the level of it won’t be on the magnitude of the first bout, but it would surely land in the top five of money fights in the history of the sport.
With one fight left on his massive Showtime contract, Floyd Mayweather has said that his last fight will be this September and has already locked in the date at his home based arena in Las Vegas, the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
But would Mayweather really retire at 49-0 and leave the ever elusive 50-0 record to pasture and a possible Manny Pacquiao rematch next year? That’s yet to be determined, but Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe says the plan is still to go this September.
“He said he wants to go in September, and I haven’t heard any different,” Ellerbe said to David Mayo of Mlive.com. “But we haven’t had a conversation about it.”
But who might exactly land the supporting role in Floyd’s grand finale? Many feel it’s Amir Khan, but we’ve heard that before. Khan has been rumored for Mayweather for two years already, but his performance against Chris Algieri couldn’t have helped his situations.
There was a rumor going around that Danny Garcia was in line for the fight, but many feel he lost to Lamont Peterson and that certainly didn’t help his cause. He now faces Paulie Malignaggi on August 1st in his first official welterweight debut.
Is there someone out there who could have a Marcos Maidana moment and leap from Amir Khan? Shawn Porter gets his crack this weekend against Adrien Broner, and Keith Thurman gets his shot July 11th against Luis Collazo.
Ellerbe knows that the young guns want a crack at the self-proclaimed “TBE” fighter.
“There are a number of good young fighters out there all vying for a shot at the king of the hill,” Ellerbe said.
One rumor that has picked up steam and hasn’t gone away has been a possible Juan Manuel Marquez rematch.
However, news out of Mexico is that his knee isn’t recovering well, and it may force him into retirement. It would make sense for Marquez to be in the role as the September 12th date is Mexican Independence Day and in order to probably give second thoughts for Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez to go on that date, a Marquez rematch might do it, even though rumor is Cotto-Canelo is likely going to be in November.
If we know anything about knee injuries, we know that they are hard to come back from especially someone in their late 30’s to 40’s as was evident when Sergio Martinez announced his retirement this weekend.
But much like the final stages of his career, we don’t know how Mayweather will fight and when he’s ready to announce it, he’ll do it via his Shots App, whenever he’s ready.
“Floyd will determine who he fights and when he fights, and no one will rush his decision,” Ellerbe said. “He’ll make up his mind who he’s fighting if he’s fighting, and we’ll go from there. And that decision will be made not one day before he’s ready to make it.”
