Floyd Mayweather: ‘I’m the face of mixed martial arts’

Floyd Mayweather may have been retired for more than a year now, but he has managed to make himself remain relevant. And since the latter half of 2016, he was able to make some noise within MMA as well.

“Money” is indeed widely recognized by many as “the best ever”, and for this fact alone, he feels he has already transcended through both forms of combat sports.

“I’m not just the face of boxing, I’m the face of mixed martial arts also,” Mayweather told Brian Campbell in an ESPN First Take Facebook live session on Wednesday (via MMA Fighting). “And I’m not an MMA fighter but I do support all contact sports.”

“I haven’t seen an MMA fight in a while but anytime I see an MMA fighter that wants to take a picture with me, I’m gonna take a picture with them because they go through a lot. Fighters go through a lot to get to a certain level and MMA fighters go through a lot just like boxers go through a lot.”

Mayweather’s name has been mentioned within MMA circles more now than ever before, after talks about a possible boxing match against Conor McGregor began to surface. For his part, Mayweather recently claimed that they tried to make the fight happen via a $15 million offer to “The Notorious.”

Mayweather believes that fight will never come to fruition, pinning the sole blame on McGregor. But ultimately, he maintains that as of the moment, the McGregor fight still makes the most sense from a business standpoint.

“I want to tell everybody this, right now. Conor McGregor, do he want to fight? Absolutely not,” Mayweather said. “I’m trying to see if he really want to fight but we can’t make the fight happen because he’s not his own boss. And I want the world to know this: just a fight, two fights ago, he was [knocks table twice] tapping out. He was just [knocks table twice] quitting.”

“A lot of fighters - legendary fighters, fighters of today, MMA fighters - everybody says, ‘Floyd Mayweather do us wrong.’ Call me what you want to call me but I’m not a quitter. I don’t quit.”

“I’m an old man now, so I’m smart. And we believe in working smarter, not harder. And the best business move for me is Conor McGregor. That’s what the world wants to see.”