By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Stephen Espinoza doesn’t expect Floyd Mayweather Jr. to box again.

That gut feeling won’t stop Showtime Sports’ executive vice president and general manager from discussing fighting the winner of the Danny Garcia-Keith Thurman welterweight championship match March 4 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Mayweather, who’ll turn 40 on February 24, said last week during an interview that aired on ESPN that he is “90, 95 percent” sure he won’t fight again. The retired five-division champion previously has stated that there was no chance he would end the second retirement of his Hall-of-Fame career.

“It’s a plus,” Espinoza joked. “We went from zero percent to five-to-10 percent. In all the private conversations, I’ve never even heard him say 90 or 95 percent. Personally, he looks pretty content. He looks pretty happy being connected with the sport as a promoter, and really not being in the gym. But I think if something piques his interest – who knows?”

Espinoza feels the welterweight unification bout between Philadelphia’s Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) and Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs), of Clearwater, Florida, is interesting enough at least to feel out Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) about the possibility of facing the winner.

“Maybe the winner of Garcia-Thurman,” Espinoza said. “Maybe he sees something in that fight draws his attention. Certainly, we’ll be calling him after that fight and asking him what he thought. But I think we’re at a point where he’s gonna be 40 next month. He looks very comfortable. Nineteen years in the sport is a long time, in this endeavor. That’s a long time in any job, but in boxing it’s a lifetime. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we didn’t see in the ring ever again.”

Mayweather hasn’t fought since easily out-pointing Andre Berto (31-4, 24 KOs) in their 12-rounder 16 months ago at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. His victory over Berto marked the last bout of a six-fight deal with Showtime within which Mayweather made at least $32 million per fight.

The Garcia-Thurman fight officially will be announced Wednesday afternoon during a press conference at Barclays Center.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.