World Boxing News can verify that Floyd Mayweather will not return to professional boxing for a world title shot in 2025, ten years after his last competitive fight.
Mayweather potentially coming back at 48 to challenge for the WBC welterweight crown – to spite his rival Manny Pacquiao – is a tall tale that WBN can categorically dismiss.
The hearsay began on social media, as always, and was carried over to further reports. However, having contacted the trainer of the current champion linked to facing Pacquiao, Mario Barrios, there’s no foundation to the Mayweather report.
Santos told WBN that Pacquiao is the only ongoing contact regarding a title defense for Barrios this summer. If that fails to materialize, as it did in November, Barrios will move on to another contender in the WBC rankings.
At no point has Floyd Mayweather indicated that he wanted to take Pacquiao’s possible record-breaking attempt away from him. Pacquiao vs Barrios is eyed for July in Las Vegas and will be given every opportunity to happen after political obligations for the first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Mayweather is currently invested in his real estate business and has no exhibitions set for 2025. As far as WBN is aware, Mayweather hasn’t trained since fighting in Mexico last August. He fought John Gotti III in a rematch of their first Florida encounter in 2023, which ended in a mass brawl.
As WBN reported at the time of the second fight, Victor Ortiz was being lined up for another Mayweather rematch. However, that interest seems to have cooled as Mayweather approaches his 48th birthday.
The five-weight world titleholder was last seen in the UK, making a sharp exit from a hostile crowd. He is currently focused on his family and his business ventures. With interest still on the table from Saudi Arabia, Mayweather would be far more likely to battle Pacquiao himself in a lucrative return than aim for any younger, more active champions from the present day.
‘Money’ hasn’t fought professionally since battering Conor McGregor in ten rounds at the T-Mobile Arena in 2017. The fight, an exhibition in all but name, led to several events of the same ilk over the past eight years, meaning Mayweather didn’t have to endure an entire training camp.
The Pacquiao fight would have been the last time Mayweather went through twelve weeks of brutal camp. Two years from his 50th birthday, any notion of him doing that again this year is absurd.
