Should We Buy Floyd Mayweather's Retirement Talk Ahead of Andre Berto Fight?
It really depends on who you believe.
To hear Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his minions tell it, Money will handle business on Saturday in Las Vegas and then ride off into a sunset crammed with fast cars, fight promotions and movie deals.
The 38-year-old Mayweather titillated the boxing populace in May when he claimed—following a scorecard vanquishing of Manny Pacquiao in a scrap for generational ring supremacy—that a subsequent September appearance would be the last of an as-yet-unscathed two-decade career.
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He’s maintained the “one more and done” stance through the run-up to this weekend’s meeting with the lightly regarded Andre Berto. However, the mere selection of a middling contender who’s lost three of his last six fights led to the assumption it was little more than a pit stop on the way to another big score.
A big score that, in Mayweather’s case, could get his record to a nice, round 50-0.
That would eclipse the mark of 49-0 that heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano established through his own finale in 1955.
So, to just about everyone outside of Team Floyd, Berto can’t possibly represent a swan song.
In fact, the only real angle on which Showtime is able to market this fight—given the cadre of more palatable competitive options out there—is that it could be the last one we’ll ever see.
“I do not think it will be his last,” Ed Levine, president of the International Boxing Organization, whose title belt Mayweather held upon moving to welterweight in 2006, told Bleacher Report. “Just a marketing ploy, in my opinion.”
Indeed, the possibilities for a mega 50th match seem like they’d be hard to ignore.
An encore with Pacquiao after their fight smashed revenue records is competitively conceivable, once the Filipino returns from a shoulder injury he said was aggravated when they met in the spring.
The May 2 event drew more than 4.4 million pay-per-view buys, clobbering the record of 2.48 million that Mayweather had set with Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.
Even Pacquiao’s adviser, Michael Koncz, told Bleacher Report he expects Mayweather to reappear.
“It’s really up to him, but I think he will want to break the record and go for 50,” Koncz said.
Mayweather could also pursue the winner of November’s WBC middleweight title fight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez—both of whom he has already beaten.
Or he could accept the invitation of IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who has said frequently that he’d drop to 154 pounds to secure a Mayweather fight.
“Floyd is at a point in his career where he can fight whoever he wants, whenever he wants,” Tom Loeffler told Bleacher Report.
Loeffler is managing partner of K2 Promotions, which works with Golovkin.
“I believe he would still fight as long as it makes sense for him and his career,” he said. “If he wants to break the (50-0) record, he will.”
And lest we forget, it’s not the first time Mayweather has flirted with leaving, only to return.
He “retired” following a December 2007 defeat of Ricky Hatton, claiming he’d “accomplished all that (he) could as a fighter,” but he came back to handle Juan Manuel Marquez after a 21-month break.
Subsequent lapses of 16 and 12 months, respectively, came after defeats of Shane Mosley in 2010 and Cotto in 2012, but neither was considered more than a respite while he plotted other marquee moves.
Mayweather regained the WBC welterweight belt from Victor Ortiz after returning from the Mosley intermission; he then bolted HBO, served time for domestic battery and signed a six-fight deal with Showtime between the Cotto victory at 154 pounds and a 147-pound return versus Robert Guerrero.
None of those exits stuck, because not only hadn’t Mayweather yet reached his sell-by date, but there were still big events (read: Pacquiao) left on the table.
It’s different this time, because though he’s slain all the dragons needed to guarantee a first-ballot trip to Canastota, New York, there’s something about ending with a guy like Berto that reeks of improper sequence.
In NFL terms, it’d be like Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl and then exiting after the next preseason.
And legacy or no legacy, it’s just not done.
Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes were obtained firsthand.
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