By Matthew Hurley: As the memory of his conclusive victory over Ricky Hatton gets filed away into his 39-0 professional record, Floyd Mayweather says he intends to stay busy in 2008, but outside the boxing ring. Floyd’s company, Mayweather Promotions, is expanding its activities to include concert promotions and feature films as well as staging boxing events. According to Mayweather his intention of taking a long sabbatical from the ring is both because of his responsibilities to his company and its growth and his growing weariness with the trials and tribulations of being a professional prize fighter.
Mayweather has alluded to his body ‘tearing down’ and the notion that he truly feels he no longer has anything to prove inside the ring. His legacy, he maintains, is secure. Without question Mayweather solidified his top standing in the mythical pound-for-pound rankings with his decisive victory over Hatton on December 8th, but his critics remain. Those who refuse to anoint him one of the greatest fighters of all time point to the fact that he has yet to face any of the preeminent welterweights that are circling the ‘Pretty Boy’ in hopes of securing a huge pay day against boxing’s biggest moneymaker.
Promoter Bob Arum immediately criticized Mayweather after the Hatton fight by stating that Floyd won’t fight his fighter Miguel Cotto because he is ‘afraid to lose.’ Mayweather, his braggart alter ego slowly receding into his psyche now that Hatton has been taken care of, spoke of Cotto with a promoter’s flair of his own.
“I’m not going to disrespect Miguel Cotto,” he told the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s Franklin McNeil. “He’s one of us. He’s part of the family, the HBO family. As a businessman I’m not going to put him down. That wouldn’t be the smart thing to do.”
Mayweather then went on to dismiss Cotto, albeit with some backhanded career advice. “I want him to do well, keep winning and building his fan base. But the truth be told, he knows he can’t beat me. He knows. Cotto’s remedy to beat me is pressure, pressure, pressure. That’s not the remedy to beat me.”
Floyd insists, however, that he is not retired, merely taking time off and getting his house in order. He is certain that at some point his fistic juices will begin to flow again and he will find himself back in training camp in preparation for another big event. Time will tell if that event will involve Miguel Cotto who, despite what Mayweather contends, is a formidable foe with a huge following and a fight between the two welterweight champions could be the biggest fight of 2008.