Floyd Mayweather is still the most famous combat sports athlete on the planet. The 43-year-old ‘retired’ boxer hasn’t officially fought since beating Conor McGregor in 2017. However, he did bully Japan’s Tenshin Nasukawa in an exhibition under the RIZIN banner.
Now he’s considering coming back again. Mayweather loves making and spending money. So it’s no wonder that he’s thinking about another fight. What better way to make a payday? There’s been talk about a rematch with Manny Pacquaio as well as discussions with the UFC.
In fact, he’s already said that he’ll fight Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagamedov in the same night. This is about as likely as Luke Rockhold developing a chin so we wouldn’t hold our breath. But in an interview with the Mirror, he expressed his demands.
Mega Money
If Mayweather is to take on the two UFC fighters he wants to be paid well. Now there’s surely very little chance of that but anyway don’t shoot the messenger. Whatever about a McGregor rematch, there’s not much hope of him fighting Khabib. ‘Money’ described his discussions with Dana White:
“Like we talked about on social media, there’s two names right now. We talked about the Conor McGregor fight, we talked about the Khabib fight. For myself, the number is $600m. If I’m going to go out there and risk it, it’d have to be worth it.”
If the UFC had $600 million to burn they’d get White a hair transplant.
Business
Mayweather doubled-down on how much money means to him. In short, it means a lot. He probably cares about it more than some of his family members. He’s invested in several businesses with his showpiece being his nightclub Girl Collection in Las Vegas. He said:
“I’m a businessman. The Conor McGregor fight made sense. If it makes money, it makes sense. I don’t fight fighters or compete against competitors that only have cities behind them. If I’m going to fight you, you have to have a whole country behind you. The first fight was entertaining. It’s an entertainment business.”
It’s true that the first fight was entertaining because it had a novelty factor. But who cares about a rematch? The chances are high that Mayweather is just looking for attention.
No Chance
Khabib just laughed at the talk. The lightweight champion doesn’t care about Mayweather. He will fight Tony Ferguson in April as long as the coronavirus doesn’t interfere. That would be typical, wouldn’t it? Anyway, Khabib said that he’ll box Mayweather as long as there’s one round of MMA. We like the idea but it’s never going to happen. He told TMZ:
“If he’s interested, maybe we can make something like my father talked about before, like 11 rounds of boxing and one round of MMA. ‘OK, let’s go, 11 rounds of three minutes boxing and last round, round 12, five minutes of MMA. If he makes the deal, I can fight.”
Imagine Khabib taking Mayweather down and ground-and-pounding him for five minutes. You’re welcome. It’s a beautiful image. Why would he want to go there?