Floyd Mayweather had the chance to make an astonishing $500 million from facing just two opponents. That opportunity has since passed the boxing legend by.
Mayweather could have earned more than half a billion dollars if he decided to repeat the two most lucrative bouts in history.
Rumors of fights with Manny Pacquiao and Conor McGregor gathered pace right up until late 2022. Now, in 2023, that chatter has disappeared forever.
Eyeing some future involvement in MMA, Mayweather was linked to facing McGregor for a second time when he announced his intentions to return to the boxing ring in 2020.
Ultimately, his business advisors failed to secure the deals that would have maximized Mayweather’s profits. Instead, he went on a lower-key exhibition run.
Pacquiao signed with McGregor’s management company, and all hell broke loose.
‘Money’ also revealed plans to work with UFC boss Dana White on the back of clarifying MMA will be part of his next run. This also didn’t happen.
“We gave the MMA sport a boost [facing McGregor in August 2017]. Eventually, I will move on to build my brand in MMA. But for right now, I’m in boxing.
“Boxing will always be at the top as long as I’m involved. My career went great. I’m happy with how everything played out,” he told Reuters.
Floyd Mayweather loses out of huge rematch purses
The MMA promise failed, a second fight with McGregor lost traction, and the Pacquiao rematch proposed by Saudi Arabian investors didn’t get off the ground.
World Boxing News exclusively broke the story in 2020 that Mayweather and Pacquiao had an offer from the Middle East. Mayweather subsequently confirmed this in a social media post a few weeks later.
But the Pacquiao fight went dead again in 2021 and never re-opened. Despite this, Pacquiao was still the bookmaker’s favorite to fight Floyd until 2022.
Mayweather lost out on purses ranging from $200 million to $300 million for both bouts. That’s if they’d have happened in the region that’s taking over the money side of the sport.
As part of his now debunked “Heist Tour,” Mayweather’s purses were said to be anything from $9 million to $25 million, a far cry from Pacquiao or McGregor.
His final effort before it all went quiet was a stain on boxing as fans and the teams of Mayweather and John Gotti III fought each other.
Arrests were made, and social media was awash with horrifying video clips of the events. The Las Vegas native has since called off plans to fight again this year.
If that proves to be his last bout, it will be a sad ending to one of the most remarkable tenures ever witnessed.
