With his solid win over Canelo Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather has further solidified his place as the sport’s pound-for-pound king, and as it’s biggest draw. The days of rivalry with Manny Pacquiao are over, and no one is talking about age or rust any more. In fact, the only question mark hanging on Floyd Mayweather these days is “what now?”
It’s a good bet that Mayweather won’t fight again until the spring of next year. Another good bet is that, for the most part, whoever Mayweather wants to fight will get in the ring with him, since a fight with “Money” means a career high payday. The usual issues of boxing politics shouldn’t matter, as perhaps the only fighter anywhere near 147 lbs who would outright turn down an offer from Mayweather is Pacquiao.
Boxing politics do still come into play here though in the form of the ongoing feud between Top Rank and Golden Boy. It makes any fighter in the Top Rank stable an unlikely opponent in the near future. Yet, for the sake of finding the best match-ups and not merely the ones whom promoters will allow us to watch, those fighters will be included below.
So who might Mayweather want? First, I think we can discount all talk of Mayweather vs. a middleweight as the stuff of amateur speculation. Mayweather’s outings at 154 — Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez — have shown that size allows guys to hang in there and take his counter-punches, and Mayweather can’t relish the idea of sliding that measure of resistance upwards.
Contrary to speculation, I doubt Sergio Martinez will want to come down to a catchweight, because while he is originally a 154-pounder, Martinez has been at 160 for more than three years now and is 38 years old. Speculation aimed at Gennady Golovkin is equally unfounded, since Golovkin is just too big to interest the calculating Mayweather.
Likewise, we can discount anyone with a tarnished reputation. There is some talk about a fight with Amir Khan, with Mayweather playing the angle of invading and capturing the UK audience. Even so, Khan needs to get past Devon Alexander first, but if he did so he would restore his reputation enough to make the fight worth Mayweather’s while.
Yet if Khan needs to polish his standing a bit to get a shot at Mayweather, talking about Marcos Maidana or Kell Brook is laughable. Brook is undefeated, but is only now stepping up to fight the likes of Vyacheslav Senchenko, while the crude-but-powerful Maidana would so obviously be putty in Mayweather’s hands as to be unsellable. Both are solid contenders, but being a plausible opponent for boxing’s undefeated pound-for-pound king demands something more.
Danny Garcia is the most obvious candidate following his win over Lucas Matthysse. Garcia is undefeated, with momentum, and he’s promoted by Golden Boy, and a Mayweather vs. Garcia fight would be easy to put together. It’s no coincidence that Garcia-Matthysse was on the undercard of Mayweather-Canelo, the winner was always going to be positioned as a potential Mayweather foe.
Another possibility is the winner of the Timothy Bradley vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight. Bradley is undefeated, has a slew of victories over top 140- and 147-pounders to his credit, and is a very worthy challenger. Mayweather humiliated Marquez in 2009, but that was before Marquez finally beat Pacquiao, and a win over Bradley does a lot for legitimizing a rematch.
One guy who needs no sprucing up is the trash-talking Adrien Broner, who is almost certain to get past the aforementioned Maidana in December. If fight fans want anyone shut up more than Mayweather, it is Broner, so Pretty Boy would actually find himself in the role of widely popular hero for once. However, the two are close friends, and a match at this stage of their careers is highly unlikely.
Some mention Brandon Rios, and Rios would certainly be viable if he can beat Manny Pacquiao, but of all the “he has to get past this fight first” match-ups listed so far, Rios is the least likely winner of the lot.
So, we can discount Pacquiao and Martinez, and especially Maidana and Golovkin as potential Mayweather opponents. Khan, Bradley and Marquez are all plausible if they can win their upcoming fights, although Garcia would still be in a superior position to any of them.
