By Edward Chaykovsky
Last week, retired former five division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26KOs) expressed his opinions on last month's fight between IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-1, 25KOs) and Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs) at the O2 Arena in London.
Golovkin retained his WBC/IBO/WBA/IBF middleweight world titles when he traveled over to the UK and stopped Brook in five rounds. Brook moved up by thirteen pounds to take the fight. He suffered a broken orbital bone in the second round, which eventually forced his corner to throw in the towel in the fifth.
Mayweather, a former five division world champion, retired from boxing last September after dominating Andre Berto over twelve rounds at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Since his retirement, Mayweather has focused on growing his promotional banner, Mayweather Promotions.
During the period of his retirement, Golovkin was calling for a fight with him. Golovkin was willing to cut weight to face Mayweather at the junior middleweight limit of 154-pounds, where Floyd held the WBA/WBC world titles.
After watching Golovkin's performance against Brook, Mayweather is pretty confident on what he's capable of doing to GGG.
"I don’t want to pronounce his name wrong, because he's not under my banner - but I think it’s Kell Brook. I don't really know his name. A guy like that with decent boxing skills exposed him. You guys already know what would have happened if that was me," Mayweather told reporters following an event his company staged this past weekend in Las Vegas.
"But I’m out of the fight game and it's about giving back, and now It's about helping these young guys go to the next level. My ultimate goal in boxing today is to find the next Floyd Mayweather. And if I cant find the next Floyd Mayweather, then I want to make these guys world champions, get them six figure paydays and seven figure paydays.”
Mayweather is still fixated on getting Golovkin to move up in weight. The retired pound-for-pound king has complained for months about Golovkin's level of opposition, stating that GGG fights small opponents rather than move up in weight to challenge himself. Mayweather is even willing to offer up one of his top fighters, WBC super middleweight world champion Badou Jack.
"I would love Triple G to come up to 168 to fight Badou Jack. It’s so crazy how they want all the small guys to go up and fight Triple G. I told you guys before - he’s a guy that’s straight up and down and really no special effects.[He has] good punching power, but really no special effects," Mayweather said.
Abel Sanchez, the trainer of Golovkin, ruled out the possibility of moving up in weight to fight Jack, for now, but he said Golovkin would be more than happy to drop down to the junior middleweight limit of 154-pounds to face Mayweather.
"He seems to be talking so much about Triple G, that I think that [Golovkin is] getting under his skin - I don’t know why. Floyd being the great fighter that he is and with the history and the record that he has - Triple G should not be one of his worries - unless he decides to come back and wants to fight him. As far as moving up [for Badou Jack], there is still some unfinished business [at middleweight], and there’s really no one up there at 168 pounds that’s lucrative enough to move up to fight. We have responsibilities at 160 and he’s gonna to take care of them first,” Sanchez explained to Fighthype.com.
"I think [Mayweather] better fight him now before Triple G learns any more. He may beat him then, huh? All coaches and all fighters have a dream fight. And for Triple G, not only now but in the past also, [the dream fight] has always been Floyd Mayweather. He’d be willing to drop down to 154-pounds for Floyd Mayweather - but nobody else. That’s his dream fight. Whether that happens or not .... who knows? But Floyd seems to be so consumed with talking about Triple G that maybe he’s thinking about it. I don’t know, but that’s up to Floyd."
