It has been rumored for awhile now, but 50 Cent made it official via Twitter on Thursday– Floyd Mayweather and the rapper are no longer “besties” and will not be working together in the boxing world.
“TMT IS OVER. The Money team is no longer a team,” 50 Cent said via his official Twitter account. “I’m no longer a part or down with TMT Promotions. If anyone wants a Money Team jacket I’m selling mine for a dollar. The snap back hat comes with it. That’s a fair price.
“Get your TMT sweat suit NOW!! For just $7.99 online No shipping and handling. I move the fighters to SMS Promotions ’cause the other half of the money team didn’t put up (their) MONEY$.”
The rapper still plans on wedging himself into the world of professional boxing, but he’ll now be doing it under his own SMS Promotions banner and not the previously used “The Money Team” name. As a matter of fact, he already has a license to promote in the State of New York and is awaiting approval on his petition to the Nevada State Athletic Commission. He even has tentative plans in place for three of his fighters– Billy Dib, Yuriorkis Gamboa, and Anthony Dirrell.
So, what does all this mean to Floyd Mayweather?
Really, not a whole lot. Not professionally, anyway.
At the moment, SMS Promotions has no big ticket welterweight or junior middleweight to directly challenge Mayweather and they don’t have the power to really affect the business maneuverings of five-division world champ.
The upstart promotional firm also lacks the infrastructure and industry foothold to make any of their own events. For example, Billy Dib will be fighting on the Miguel Cotto-Austin Trout card in Madison Square Garden, thanks to Golden Boy and Miguel Cotto’s own promotional company. Yuriorkis Gamboa is pegged to return to the ring on the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez undercard, thanks to Top Rank Promotions. Andre Dirrell is also tentatively scheduled to return on a Top Rank card.
This says that, at least for the time being, 50 Cent is only a player in the sense that he can funnel a few fighters into other promoters’ cards.
Mayweather, on the other hand, keeps his informal affiliation with Golden Boy, which has welterweights Robert Guerrero, Andre Berto, Victor Ortiz, Marcos Maidana, Paulie Malignaggi, and Devon Alexander under contract. They also have Saul Alvarez at junior middleweight and just about every top 154 lb. presence.
Rumors abounded recently that 50 Cent and a faction within Mayweather’s inner circle were set on separating the fighter from adviser, Al Haymon, and from his long-running partnership with Golden Boy. But Mayweather and 50 Cent running an independent promotional firm made no sense whatsoever if it meant somehow severing ties with Golden Boy.
For Mayweather, burning his bridges with Golden Boy would’ve been a horrible business move– especially considering that, with 50 Cent, he’d have no talent pool from which to draw potential opponents and he would still likely be deemed untouchable by Bob Arum and Top Rank.
Good business is good business.
What caused the end of the friendship/partnership and to what degree Mayweather was ever willing to be a working member of 50 Cent’s plans in the first place are two questions that remain to be answered. And, given the difficulty with which a straight answer is extracted from Mayweather, we’ll likely never know the full story.
But for now, all we know is that it’s splittsville for the boxing bromance of the century and, in the short term, this dissolution of the Money-Fiddy partnership means a lot more to the rapper than the boxer.
