Floyd Mayweather is popping out of retirement and can return to skilled boxing after his exhibition battle with Mike Tyson this spring, the 48-year-old introduced Friday.
Former multi-weight world champion Mayweather retired from boxing in 2017, unbeaten in 50 bouts, though he has appeared in a number of exhibition fights since.
“I nonetheless have what it takes to set extra data within the sport of boxing,” Mayweather stated in an announcement to AFP.
“From my upcoming Mike Tyson occasion to my subsequent skilled battle afterwards — nobody will generate a much bigger gate, have a bigger international broadcast viewers and generate more cash with every occasion — than my occasions.”
A primary skilled battle is tentatively scheduled for this summer season, towards an opponent to be introduced.
Particulars will probably be revealed “within the coming weeks,” stated the assertion.
Nicknamed “Cash”, Mayweather was as soon as the world’s highest-paid athlete, with earnings of $300 million in 2015, in keeping with Forbes.
At his peak, he was extensively thought-about boxing’s pound-for-pound king, dominating the welterweight division for greater than a decade.
Regardless of his success, Mayweather has lengthy been a controversial determine.
He was usually criticized for an excessively defensive model, and accused by a few of dodging essentially the most harmful opponents merely to decorate his report.
Mayweather has additionally hung out in jail for one among a string of home violence incidents.
However his supreme health, work ethic, athleticism and boxing mind earned him the respect of his friends within the ring.
Mayweather’s final skilled bout was in 2017 towards UFC star Conor McGregor.
He has continued to seem in exhibitions, together with a victory over John Gotti III in Mexico in August 2024, in addition to bouts with actuality tv stars and YouTube fighters.
Mayweather has signed an unique settlement with promoter CSI Sports activities/Combat Sports activities to start out following his Tyson bout.
Boxing outlet Ring Journal not too long ago reported that Mayweather’s exhibition battle with Tyson will happen on April twenty fifth within the Congo, though neither date nor location has been formally confirmed.
“Iron Mike” Tyson, 59, final appeared within the ring in a lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Jake Paul in Texas in November 2024.
Tyson barely landed a punch in that Netflix-backed bout, which was watched by a reside crowd of round 70,000 spectators with an estimated hundreds of thousands extra tuning in around the globe.
