Floyd Mayweather is currently in Florida, “chilling with Don King,” according to his recent Tweet. What this probably means is that Mayweather is feeling the massive pressure from HBO and Golden Boy to fight Manny Pacquiao next and is looking for an escape. Of course, most astute ring observers know a showdown with Manny Pacquiao is a fight Mayweather desperately does NOT want, regardless of the amount of money on the table.
Mayweather wants to be able to continue to handpick his fights, portray and promote himself as the greatest of all time, and receive top dollar for fights which are little more than meaningless, staged mismatches – such as Mike Tyson vs. Peter McNeeley or Mike Tyson vs. Bruce Seldon.
Of course, those two “fights” were promoted by Don King who paid his superstar Tyson approximately $20 million for each one-sided mismatch. Something tells me that this may be what Mayweather wants from Don King – for the mighty promoter to be able to work his magic one last time to secure big money for easy fights for superstar Floyd Mayweather’s next “comeback”, which really will be his next return from hiding (vacation) from another high risk opponent. It’s all about making smart business decision, Floyd Mayweather tells us.
We know Don King is a master at protecting his meal tickets from risky fights – he had the political and tactical know-how to save Mike Tyson from Lennox Lewis in the mid 1990’s and he prevented his heavyweight titleholders John Ruiz and Chris Byrd from being slaughtered by Vitali Klitschko in unification matches in the mid 2000’s. And don’t forget, he did protect Chavez from that Whitaker rematch. I’m sure there are countless other examples.
It’s all about survival now for Mayweather who knows with absolute certainty that Manny Pacquiao is his doom. Manny Pacquiao is the superior to Floyd Mayweather in every way, every attribute, in and out of the ring. But professional boxing is about making smart business decisions and Manny Pacquiao, the immortal warrior, is eventually, sometime in the future, going to become mortal and will be conquered.
Mayweather is a cunningly clever fellow and knows he must bide his time now, he knows he must find a way to delay and stall until Pacquiao either loses, retires or shows vulnerability. King, who has been shunned by the American boxing powers-that-be for the last several years would like nothing more than the opportunity to work his promotional magic one more time with African-American brother and superstar Floyd Mayweather.
Mayweather needs a way out to escape the HBO/Golden Boy pressure to fight Manny Pacquiao for another year or two or three. Mayweather, the greatest ducking dodger in boxing history is the ultimate escape artist. He knows there has to be a way – some way – to evade being slaughtered Manny Pacquiao and Bob Arum.
Don King will do his best to try to convince Floyd Mayweather that he is the solution. And he will very likely get the job if he can find a way to pay Mayweather approximately $20,000,000 to fight people like Matthew Hatton, Ricky Hatton, Lovemore N’dou, Zab Judah, Nate Campbell…or Cory Spinks on Showtime.
