Why the Smart Money Is on a Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao Rematch in 2016

It’s the $400 million question.

Having generated unconscionable amounts of cash from their initial go-round on May 2, will Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao ever again find themselves as in-ring combatants?

The answer you get depends on the source from which it comes.

The first fight’s winner, for example, insists it’s not at all a possibility.

Barely an hour after defeating his Filipino rival, Mayweather said that he’d fight just one more time at summer’s end before speeding toward the sunset in one of his fleet of exotic cars.

And even cynics who hadn’t believed him before he blanked Andre Berto on Sept. 12 were subtly swayed toward swan song at the post-fight press conference, where the newly 49-0 champion looked and sounded every bit a guy who was convinced he had nothing left to prove.

Steve Marcus/Associated Press

“It's official. I am done,” Mayweather said, moments after the verdict that boosted his unblemished mark to 49-0, equaling Rocky Marciano's boxing version of baseball's 56-game hit streak.

“I've accomplished everything in this sport. There's nothing left to accomplish. You have to know when to hang it up. I'm knocking at the door. I'm close to 40 years old.”

But even 45 days later, many more people remain just as certainly unconvinced.

Not least of whom is Pacquiao, whose 16-word claim in a Facebook video on Monday restarted chatter that Money’s absence is far more an intermission than a permanent vacation.

“We’re still negotiating right now about the rematch with Floyd Mayweather,” Pacquiao said.

“So I’m hoping for that.”

Though main principals on both sides—Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum and Mayweather confidant Leonard Ellerbe—were quick to declare the beaten man’s statements as rogue, it’d be hard to argue another meeting of future Hall of Famers would make sense for every party with a piece of the action.

For Mayweather, it’s a chance at 50-0. For Pacquiao, it’s a chance at redemption.

For Las Vegas, it’s a chance at a guaranteed blockbuster in a new strip-side arena, where even half of the $74 million springtime gate at the MGM Grand would be the second most-lucrative event in history.

And that’s why many others don’t believe it’s over either.

“It’s definitely not his last,” Shane Mosley told Bleacher Report of Mayweather, who beat Mosley by unanimous decision in May 2010—precisely 372 days before Pacquiao did the same.

“He is not retiring before 50. He is going to rematch Pac because of the money, of course.”

Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press

Indeed, the May 2 event drew more than 4.4 million pay-per-view buys, clobbering the record of 2.48 million that Mayweather had established with Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.

Mayweather claimed a more than $200 million payday, which helped him top the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes for the fourth time. And to a guy who drops $3.5 million on a Bugatti that tops out at 254 mph, it’s not a big reach to suggest he’d be willing to go 36 more minutes to justify another spree.

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.

Of course, 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 finally accept the invitation of IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who’s said frequently that he’d drop to 154 pounds to secure a Mayweather fight.

But though either could be justified as more competitively fulfilling, neither would equal the payout.

“Floyd is at a point in his career where he can fight whoever he wants, whenever he wants,” Tom Loeffler, managing partner of K2 Promotions, which works with Golovkin, told Bleacher Report.

“I believe he would still fight as long as it makes sense for him and his career. If he wants to break the (50-0) record, he will.”

Count Ed Levine, president of the International Boxing Organization, as a retirement skeptic, too.

“I do not think it will be his last,” he told Bleacher Report. “Just a marketing ploy, in my opinion.”

NOTE: All quotes were obtained firsthand.