Even as he trained for Conor McGregor last month, Floyd Mayweather Jr.?s thoughts turned to Saturday?s anticipated middleweight title fight between unbeaten, three-belt champion Gennady Golovkin and his challenger from Mexico, Canelo Alvarez.
As he overheard an interviewer ask father-trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. who would win the Golovkin-Alvarez bout, Mayweather Jr. interrupted.
Mayweather cruised to a majority decision victory over a 23-year-old Alvarez in 2013, but he told one close to him afterward that Alvarez punched harder than any opponent he had faced.
?He?s got to go to the body, Daddy,? Mayweather Jr. said of Alvarez. ?He can stop him if he goes to the body.?
After stopping McGregor by 10th-round technical knockout Aug. 26, Mayweather said he was retired, a point he reiterated on a Showtime boxing telecast Friday in Las Vegas.
But a rematch with Alvarez, 27, would certainly be a lucrative bout that would be difficult for Mayweather to pass up after drawing more than 4 million pay-per-view buys against UFC champion McGregor.
Four years ago, their meeting set a then-record of $150 million in sales from 2.2 million pay-per-view buys.
If Alvarez can wrest the throne from Golovkin, considered by some to be the world?s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, that rematch would certainly be favored to surpass those prior sales.
Mayweather (50-0) has been less interested in fighting Golovkin, although he could see diminished speed in the 35-year-old champion from Kazakhstan and press for a fight at 154 pounds.
?It ain?t that Triple-G [Golovkin] is weak to the body, but if you go down there, you?ll find a lot of stuff you haven?t seen before,? Mayweather Sr. advised, perhaps to assist Alvarez trainers Eddy and Chepo Reynoso. ?It happens that way.?
