Will superstar Floyd Mayweather Junior return to the ring so he can achieve the milestone record of 50-0? Nobody knows for sure, despite the ongoing speculation – not even his father and trainer. Speaking with Helen Yee Sports, Mayweather Senior said he does not know if his son will lace ’em up one more time, but the former fighter says he is only too aware of how age can catch up with any boxer, his son included. And Snr said that at age 40 soon (Floyd will hit the big 40 next February) he “wouldn’t advise him to keep fighting.”
“My understanding was that Floyd was coming back, but now we have to wait and see,” Mayweather Senior said. “I just don’t know right now. For boxing, right now Floyd is getting up in age. I wouldn’t advise him to continue to fight. Why? He has enough money and he’s smart with it. He has nothing more to prove. There’s no reason to keep fighting. Every year your reflexes are going to give – they’re going to stop. You’re not going to be able to move like you used to move, and you won’t be able to duck all the same punches you used to.”
As marvellously well conditioned as “Money” is and with as little punishment and rough and tough fights as he’s taken, he is subject to physical deterioration just like anybody else. Some fans would like to see it, but it would be a shame if Mayweather came back , discovered to his horror that he had, as the saying goes, grown old overnight, and got beaten by a fighter who would not have touched him beforehand. But Mayweather Jnr loves money (you can never have enough goes yet another saying) and many people are convinced he will fight again at least once more.
If the 49-0 great does return to the ring for the first time since his wide points win over Andre Berto last September, his father has one fighter in mind as his choice for who the opponent should be: “former friend” Adrien Broner.
“If he’s going to make a comeback, pick the right opponent and then shut it down,” Snr said. “Call it quits and leave that part of the sport alone. I know who I’d like to see him fight. Broner. They used to be friends – not any more.”
Broner, before he reportedly priced himself out and then got sentenced to 30 days in jail for turning up to court drunk/hungover, was in the running to fight another superstar in Manny Pacquiao. Maybe, once he’s out of jail – and assuming Broner receives no further jail time – the interesting and quite personal grudge-fight that is Mayweather Vs. Broner will be made. There would be plenty of negativity of course, and many fans would see Broner as having next to no chance against even a 40-year-old Mayweather, but the fight would sell. No doubt about it. And you would watch it.
And just maybe, if the fight did happen, Mayweather, if he really does dislike Broner as much as his father and other people say he does, might go all out to give us something he’s not given us for five long years: a KO victory. One thing though; Floyd, by his own admission, likes to play the “bad guy” in a fight, while Broner is seemingly every fight fan’s pick as the number-one bad guy in the sport today. Two bad guys in the same fight just doesn’t work, promoters used to say – who would the fans root for!