No wonder fight promoters can’t resist shoveling millions of dollars toward Floyd Mayweather, Jr., as long as he wins all 44 of his matches.
Saturday at Las Vegas, Mayweather, 36, decisively outpointed Robert Guerrero in their welterweight title fight. All three judges scored the bout 117-111 in Mayweather’s favor. The Associated Press had Mayweather winning 119-109.
“I didn’t know who he was a year ago,” Mayweather said. “I probably heard his name in passing but didn’t know who the guy was, but he earned his shot.”
“I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made in the [Miguel Cotto] fight,” Mayweather said. “I think I trained too hard for that fight. I’m a better fighter than I was for the Cotto fight.”
Mayweather claims he’s going to box more regularly - including a bout in September - although hehasn’t fought twice in a calendar year since 2007. “I feel unbeatable,” he said. “I’m in the sport to go down as the best and I’m not going into a fight thinking I’m beatable. I feel I can adjust. I feel I can adapt.
“I feel unbeatable,” Mayweather said, repeating himself.
Mayweather has a franchise of sorts to protect, one that started him toward untold millions of dollars since he beat Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 to push himself into the top ranks. He earned another $40 million for fighting Guerrero and trying to remain undefeated.
How many fight fans could name an undefeated welterweight these days, unless the name was Mayweather?
Some 40 or 50 years ago, though, you’d no doubt notice a lot of difference.
A new six-fight television deal with Showtime should keep Mayweather as the world’s highest-paid athlete for some time.
The best we can tell, two or three current boxers are picking up money in the range of $30 million to $32 million. You have to imagine it can’t last.
When heavyweight champion Joe Louis was on top in 1937-1948, he rarely made more than a million dollars from a fight, and normally far less. The money opened up then to some extent, for Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, etc.
You can believe someone is keeping a sharp eye on the situation.
This happened several years ago in a Little Rock hotel that was offering “pro” boxing for a week.
One of the toughest boxers involved also had a job at the hotel - in the kitchen. Late in the week, he’d had only one opportunity to punch somebody. Mostly, he was only washing dishes.
His “manager” noticed, late in the tournament, that one of the toughest entries had finally showed up. The manager slipped into the kitchen and alerted the dishwater-puncher. Apparently there was some bad blood between the two contestants.
The match lasted less than a round after three knockdowns. The winner grabbed his prize, a $50 bill, and sprinted off to change from prizefighter to dishwasher. He scored his knockout about 9 o’clock. He was still washing dishes at midnight.
Sports, Pages 18 on 05/07/2013