5 Potential Floyd Mayweather Fights in 2020

LAS VEGAS, NV - AUGUST 26: Floyd Mayweather Jr. walks to his corner after a round in his super welterweight boxing match against Conor McGregor on August 26, 2017 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

When Mayweather-Pacquiao finally happened in 2015, it occurred five years too late. It was a boring fight, Pacquiao had an injured shoulder, and plenty of boxing fans will tell you that it didn’t really solve the question of who the greater welterweight was since years of their primes were wasted trying to make the match. It did, however, make them an absurd amount of money. Reportedly, the PPV earned Mayweather upwards of $180 million while Pacquiao took home around $120 million and there’s enough of an appetite—especially from Pacquiao who told us this past summer that he’s down for a rematch—to see these two future Hall of Famers square up one more time. There is skepticism in boxing circles that Mayweather would be interested considering how awesome the 40-year-old Pacquiao looked in his summer showdown with Keith Thurman. If the money’s right, we know Pacquiao is down. Chances are, if Floyd is actually serious about boxing again, Pacquiao, the current WBA super welterweight champion, would be too.

GTFOH. Not going to happen for too many reasons to outline here, even though, hypothetically, this would make a gargantuan amount of money for both. Alvarez is arguably the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, has jumped up too many weight-classes since he suffered his only professional loss to Floyd in 2013, and is in the middle of his prime right now. Canelo, now the face of boxing, has a massive deal with streaming service DAZN so money isn't an issue for him and he appears to be more interested in chasing greatness than a publicity stunt at age 29. 

The welterweight division is boxing’s best and deepest. But the idea that Mayweather would take on Errol Spence or Terence Crawford (two of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world) or Keith Thurman or Danny Garcia or Shawn Porter or Mikey Garcia (also a pound-for-pound elite) or any other high-level 147-pound fighter is preposterous. Floyd don’t want that smoke.

While I can easily make the argument that the spectacle that was Mayweather-McGregor turned out to be a better fight than expected, it easily could’ve ended earlier than the 10th round. Again, Mayweather is a showman and if he wanted to drop McGregor early on he absolutely could have. But it made for a better product letting the fight slide into the championship rounds and giving people more for their money since the PPV cost $100. McGregor, at the time of the fight the biggest draw in MMA, only seriously trained as a boxer for roughly six months so it was lightwork for Floyd in the ring that evening despite an 11-year age difference. McGregor has previously told us he would “never say never” to boxing again. But he also said he was focused on MMA training and his whiskey business. A rematch with Floyd could be tough to turn down since it made him reportedly around $100 million and he launched his promotions business around the fight. Mayweather, of course, reportedly earned well over $200 million for the fight so you know if the right broadcaster threw enough dollars at these two there’s a good chance they’d throw down one more time.

Arguably the baddest man in UFC, Khabib Nurmagomedov, has been tossed around as a potential opponent for Mayweather since the lightweight champion once upon a time called out Floyd. But there have been zero indications that Khabib would want to take away from his MMA training to focus on boxing.