Floyd Mayweather Testing Water For Planned Boxing Comeback
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 13 May 2020
The volume of chatters emanating from Floyd Mayweather Jr suggests not only that he indeed wants to return to boxing but would want to know who the public wants and would accept as his comeback opponent.
Hence he has been floating trial balloons by way of statements, some even that would seem to suggest otherwise and even tend to ignore or belittle his prospective opponents, chiefly contemporary rivals Manny Pacquiao and Saul Alvarez.
Floyd is a master practitioner of reverse psychology which he employed extensively in a career that made him the richest, most commercially successful boxer in history.
By now, we should already be used, and wisened up, to Floyd's double entrende talks.
Last week, he was saying that he was not interested in any comeback fight against Pacquiao or Alvarez and that he was happy where he is today, retired.
But recently, he was hitting Canelo in connection with the promotional turnout of their 2012 fight which despite failing to break the then pay per view record he shared with Oscar de la Hoya, set the record for highest gate receipts.
Yesterday, he was admonishing the younger fighters to stop chasing "old man", Manny Pacquiao (look who is talking!), echoing the supposed caring sentiments of Bob Arum who later changed his tune and is eyeing the Filipino ring legend as opponent for his prize ward Terrence Crawford in a planned big comeback of live arena boxing under a Covid-19 new normal in the fight sport.
Before these, he had earlier floated the possibility of a return boxing bout with MMA champion Conor McGregor and a match versus his ex-future heir apparent Adrien Broner.
Nobody paid attention to that Broner bout.
But his mention of McGregor only trigger responses from rivals and critics as Oscar de la Hoya, and would you believe, even china chinned Amir Khan claiming that they could kayo Conor much easier and earlier than Mayweather actually did.
Whatever intrigue or interest Floyd wanted to raise with another fight with McGregor therefore has been effectively squelched.
Hence, Floyd has gone back to Canelo and Manny through his deliberate hazily coded, double entendre missives which I believe are meant to get the attention and gauge the mood and response of the boxing public.
And why would Floyd not target Canelo and especially Manny Pacquiao when those two ring rivals gave him his largest income in boxing?
Canelo, due to the current ban on boxing and other spectator sports, among others in the US and elsewhere on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, still has nothing definite in his schedule.
Manny Pacquiao is on similar boat so to speak and he has said boxing is far from his mind now that he is prioritizing his country's crucial combat against the corona virus.
But for Floyd, hope springs eternal and he sees boxing returning soon. And he sees himself not only as a part but largely instrumental in its huge comeback.
But will the boxing public bite his bait?
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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