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By Scoop Malinowski
Floyd Mayweather says he’s retiring from boxing now, with a record of 49-0, just one short of breaking the historic mark of former heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano’s famous 49-0 record.
Most fans and boxing pundits are not taking Mayweather at his word – and strongly suspect the 38-year-old is using his latest retirement as a ploy to counter several mounting problems and threats.
First of all, the public has grown tired of Mayweather’s boring fights against handpicked opponents and after the latest disappointing and under-performing farce against Andre Berto, there’s no way another Floyd fight could be sold to the public.
Another problem for Mayweather is that the public really wants to see him accept the challenge of Gennady Golovkin and fight the sensational undefeated middleweight champion knockout machine at the junior middleweight classification, a division in which Mayweather has boxed and has held a title and GGG insists he can make the weight of 154.
The public also wants to see a Mayweather vs Pacquiao rematch, now that Pacquiao’s shoulder is healing and the controversy has erupted that Mayweather may have been caught using PEDS via an illegal IV the day before the Pacquiao fight.
By fake retiring, Mayweather can successfully duck these two dangerous threats – as time goes on, both Golovkin and Pacquiao will make alternative plans to fight other opponents, freeing Mayweather from the pressure of having to face two dynamos he would much prefer to duck.
At some point, next summer is my estimation – it’s reasonable to assume Mayweather will find it publicly safe to announce he will fight again – his team and media manipulation strategists will promote the idea that it’s a great move for boxing that Mayweather, the pay per view king who has never delivered one single exciting fight, will return to boxing to try to break the illustrious record of Rocky Marciano. (Of course, Mayweather and his team are planning on promoting many more Floyd fights for many years to come, but because of fan frustrations of the Mayweather business model, they must conceal their agenda.)
The date of the return of Mayweather will most likely come after Pacquiao and Golovkin have set fight dates, and then Mayweather and his team can target another handpicked patsy, who will fully understand what his role in the choreography will be – to glorify Floyd as the facsimile, pretend greatest of all time.
This will be the tricky part – finding a sellable opponent which Showtime and the public will find acceptable — my guess is it will be the undefeated but Al Haymon controlled Keith Thurman, who will talk mostly nice about Floyd in the pre-fight hype, and of course, mysteriously plod around the ring like a dummy and throw his punches with less than normal vehemence and violence on fight night, like so many of Mayweather’s opponents in the last ten years.
There is no doubt at all that Mayweather will fight again, for many reasons – he has unfinished business, the Rocky record – Al Haymon, the megalomaniac who wants to control the sport, has no other PPV stars to sell – having already stolen millions from the gullible and naive public, why not try for more, and keep milking the Mayweather reality show? – and perhaps most of all the words of Paulie Malignaggi expressed it best: “Al Haymon can manipulate anything, what Al Haymon wants Al Haymon gets.”
Mayweather has already fake retired from the sport several times – each time for a different strategic reason. Only a fool would swallow hook, line and sinker, the latest smoke screen retirement by the most dishonest and disingenuous fighter in boxing history, Floyd Mayweather.
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