Stephen Espinoza has heard and read about all the rumors regarding Floyd Mayweather’s return to boxing.

Rematches with Manny Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez and Conor McGregor. A fight against another UFC star, Khabib Nurmagomedov. Even a “grudge” match with Adrien Broner, who calls Mayweather his “big brother.”

Espinoza doesn’t pay the speculation much mind. Showtime’s president of sports and event programming believes the 43-year-old Mayweather will remain retired.

“How old will Floyd have to be before people stop asking about him fighting again?,” Espinoza told BoxingScene.com. “He’s been out of the ring several years. But I think there are two reasons why people won’t let go of this. One, as is often the case, there’s a greater appreciation for the skills after someone has retired. And I think there’s a good chunk of the fans who wanna see that skill set in action one more time. And then the other is, I think Floyd would be left alone if people started to see his skills degrade. But he went out, after the Pacquiao and Berto fights, and looked as dominant as he has ever been. So, there’s probably a feeling from a lot of boxing fans that, ‘Well, he hasn’t taken a lot of punishment. Let’s keep going. We miss the spectacle of those events.’

“But everyone ages at some point. And with respect to Floyd, what more do you expect of him? He carried the sport for well over a decade. He gave almost 20 years of his life to professional boxing. In the last stage of his career, he was fighting twice a year, which is far busier than anyone thought he would be. It’s tough to come up with a good reason for why he needs to return, other than the fans sort of thirst for another dominant performance from him.”

Showtime will replay two of Mayweather’s more memorable performances back to back Friday night, beginning at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The premium cable channel will offer encores of Mayweather’s majority-decision victory over Marcos Maidana in May 2014 and his 10th-round technical knockout of McGregor in August 2017.

Mayweather-McGregor stands as the second-biggest pay-per-view event of all time. Their 154-pound boxing match produced approximately 4.3 million buys, behind only Mayweather’s win against Manny Pacquiao, which generated about 4.6 million buys in May 2015.

Espinoza expects his stoppage of Ireland’s McGregor to remain the last official fight of Mayweather’s career.

“I believe him,” Espinoza said. “You look at his last interview last week [with FightHype.com], he seems very content. He’s settling into life. He’s adjusting to a couple recent losses in his life, which would weigh heavily on anyone. Those were two important figures in his life.”

Espinoza, whose network handled Mayweather’s last seven fights, referred to the deaths of Josie Harris and Roger Mayweather.

Harris, the mother of three of Mayweather’s four children, died at the age of 40 on March 10. Roger Mayweather, his uncle and longtime trainer, was 58 when he died March 17.

Some of the speculation regarding Mayweather’s return to boxing has been fueled by him posting videos of training sessions from his gym in Las Vegas. Espinoza doesn’t make much of those, either.

“Old habits die hard,” Espinoza said. “He’s in the gym because he has always been in shape and he enjoys the sport. I think he is discovering that he may enjoy teaching the sport a little bit more than he expected. But I don’t read anything into the fact that he’s in the gym. I think he is always gonna be in the gym. You spend the first 40 years of your life devoted to something, when you retire, you’re not just gonna walk away cold turkey.”

As much as the competitor in Mayweather might be tempted to fight again, Espinoza thinks the undefeated five-division champion is dissuaded by the thought of another long, tough training camp.

“For a guy like Floyd, the grind is the camp, as it is for a lot of fighters,” Espinoza said. “The way he trained, the tough part was the eight to 10 weeks before the fight. Fight night was the fun part. So, at this age, having done everything you want, I’m sure he would love to have another fight and love the excitement and spectacle and all that. But does he really want and need to go through 10 weeks of grueling training? Floyd doesn’t do anything halfway. If he was gonna come back, he would have another grueling camp. I don’t blame him for not being all that interested in it. Who would be at this point in their career?” 

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