Ok, I?m going to admit that as I?m putting fingers to keyboard right now, I?m pretty damn wasted. There were some se?oritas, some Jimador tequila, more se?oritas, and maybe some other substances floating around a friend?s ranch up here in the hills of Central Mexico. The party started on Saturday and I found my way back home just after 12:15 AM Monday.
Good times.
And the first thing I see online after lighting up my laptop is a post on Facebook about the press conference announcing Floyd Mayweather?s latest comeback.
Apparently, he?s fighting December 31 against some 20-year-old kid named Tenshin Nasukawa in Japan.
Huh?
Let?s back this truck up.
I take a long drink of cold water, splash some on my face, and go back to the screen.
Yep, I read that right and the news is coming directly from Mayweather?s mouth in a press conference from Japan.
?The world has never seen Mayweather compete live in Tokyo,? an unusually unkempt Mayweather told reporters. ?Throughout the years, I?ve seen a lot of fans from Japan come to Las Vegas and come to the US. But me and my team said, ?let?s do something different, let?s go to Japan.??
What rules will they be fighting under? In which weight class will they compete?
Well, shit, beyond it being a ?special? bout as Mayweather described it, we can?t answer the first two questions at all. It?s likely that event organizers, Japanese MMA company Rizin Fighting Federation doesn?t have an answer to those questions, either. It would be a good bet, though, that the bout will be contested with boxing rules and at Mayweather?s chosen weight class of 147. But the five-division former world champ insists that the petty details don?t matter.
?As far as the weight class, we?re not really worried about that,? Mayweather insisted. ?When it?s all said and done, it?s all about me going out there displaying my skills against another skillful fighter.?
And, oh yeah, by the way, who the hell is this other ?skillful? fighter, Nasukawa?
Remember, I?m still pretty wasted here.
The kid is a kickboxer/MMA fighter and he?s considered a pretty powerful southpaw puncher, sporting a 31-0 combined record with 29 KOs in his young career.
He?s also 5 ft. 4, competes at about 121 lbs. and is dwarfed by Mayweather in the one publicity shot available to the public. The sparkly suit he?s got on, along with the pretty fifi bleach-blond hairdo he?s sporting, makes him look more like Money?s little figure skater buddy than enemy combatant.
Apparently, however, this kid is a legitimate bad-ass in his own world. But he?s not a boxer. The closest he?s come to qualifying for a fight against the pound-for-pound best boxer of this era is a fourth round kickboxing KO of former IBF flyweight champ Amnat Ruenroeng in 2017.
This whole thing just sounds crazy, crazy, crazy at this point and me being buzzed out of my mind has very little to do with my current take on the event.
The buzz around boxing has been pretty strong about Mayweather coming back and possibly doing so in Japan, where he?s looking to build an Asian business empire revolving around, from what I hear, gyms and strip clubs. The comeback bout is also rumored to be a prelude to a rematch with Manny Pacquiao in 2019.
Pacquiao, who recently signed a reported two-fight deal with Mayweather advisor Al Haymon, let the cat out of the bag a bit by mentioning that Floyd would have a December 31 tune-up in Japan before moving on to the ?megafight? rematch.
Mayweather, himself, had hinted about coming back to fight in Japan.
But, still?against a 20-year-old kickboxing featherweight? Man?
Just wait until all the sour-shoed, swamp-assed boxing ?purists? who had fits over Mayweather fighting Conor McGregor in 2017 sink their teeth into this big ball of ?fuck you??
