Former six-time NFL all-pro receiver Chad Johnson has been added to the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Logan Paul undercard on June 6th in what appears to be an effort to attract fans from other sports to purchase the Triller pay-per-view card.
Johnson’s opponent will be named later. For now, Johnson is scheduled for the undercard at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Chad’s bout will be a four to six-round affair, according to ESPN. This will be an exhibition fight for Johnson, who has worked out in the past at Mayweather Boxing gym.
Johnson’s opponent won’t be a boxer. He’s expected to face another former pro athlete or a celebrity. It would be interesting to see Logan’s younger brother Jake Paul matched up against Johnson, but that probably won’t happen.
Jake is popular enough to headline his own cards and seems to be more focused on fighting MMA guys now.
Considering how great of an athlete Johnson was during his long career in the NFL, he likely would give Mayweather a tougher test than YouTuber Logan Paul, who has major stamina issues and is 0-1 as a pro.
Adding Chad Johnson to the card might attract some NFL fans to purchase the event, but one can’t imagine a huge amount of buys will result in adding him.
He’s out of the NFL for too long, and the fans aren’t likely going to want to shell out a ton of money to watch the card headlined by former six-division world champion Mayweather take on a YouTuber with just one fight under his belt.
Mayweather Promotions executive Leonard Ellerbe is the one that asked the former 11-year NFL receiver Johnson if he wanted to fight on the undercard.
It’s unclear what made Ellerbe ask Johnson, but perhaps he’s been asking other former pros from other sports, and he was the only one to agree.
It’s obviously strange to have another non-boxer on the card, but it goes along with the whole bizarre set-up for these events. Mayweather fighting a Youtuber and selling it to fans, it seems senseless. I’m not sure if Mayweather has thought this thing through clearly or not. Obviously, the people at Triller think it’ll work, but we’ll have to see.
Like in the April 17th card headlined by Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren, Triller will probably make the Mayweather-Paul event a music concert with boxing in between. Many fans complained about hating the music for the April 17th card, but they had to endure it because they wanted to see Jake take on Askren.
Thus far, this is the undercard for the Mayweather vs. Paul PPV event on Triller:
- Chad Johnson vs. TBA
- Jarrett Hurd vs. Luis Arias
- Jean Pascal vs. Badou Jack
Mayweather has taken an odd approach to his retirement since hanging up his gloves in 2015. He came back in 2017 and beat UFC star Conor McGregor by a 10th round knockout in a fight that was surprisingly sanctioned as a pro fight by the Nevada Commission.
McGregor was making his pro debut with a 0-0 record. In Mayweather’s next fight, he defeated Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa by a first-round knockout in an exhibition on December 31st, 2018.