What are the big money moments for Floyd ‘moneymaker’ Mayweather?

Love him or loathe him, Floyd Mayweather is, in some regards, unrivaled in the world of boxing both in terms of his 50-0 record, defensive abilities, and his fight purses. As an undefeated fighter and with PPV audiences dying to either see his winning run continue, the dollar sums he was and indeed is able to command and draw in went up and up over the years. Even now when he’s effectively retired from professional boxing, he hasn’t exactly left the scene. A mismatched fight against social media star Logan Paul is imminent for instance, and should bring in the millions once more.

Nowadays Floyd Mayweather is more often found in a Las Vegas Casino than he is a boxing ring.No doubt he’s still in need of a rush and certainly falls into the category of having ‘money to burn’. It’s not in high risk credit card processing territory though because even in his advancing years – boxing-wise- he’s capable of bringing in big bucks. Let’s take a look at a few of his fights that effortlessly brought in the crowds and the $$$.

Mayweather vs Pacquiao drew in an astonishing £678M. The fight resulted in 4.6m PPV sales and a record gate. Fans had been hoping for the match up for half a decade and consequently it drew such interest that it was dubbed the Fight of the Century. Inevitably, considering the anticipation beforehand the fight didn’t quite live up to the hype. It was however still a masterclass by Mayweather earning a purse of £223.5m, with Pacquiao earning £122m for the fight.

Next up was what could be classed as Mayweather’s first ‘gimmicky’ fight, against Connor McGregor.  The fight earned £662.5m total (with a £223.5m purse for Mayweather, and £70m for McGregor) and surprisingly MMA superstar McGregor actually put up a better performance than most had anticipation. He certainly didn’t let himself down in what was dubbed ‘The Money Fight’ (how imaginative!). That said at no point did Mayweather actually look in trouble and as such it was something of an easy pay day for the fighter.

Third up and quite a drop was Mayweather vs Canelo, coming it at £214m. The Mexican fighter, who has been a world champion in four different weight classes (as has Mayweather), was a relative youngster when he fought Mayweather and so to an extent was schooled by him, in the fight held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Nowadays Canelo is a powerful force in boxing, as he recently demonstrated in his devastating win against the UK’s Billy Joe Saunders. Indeed the fighter hasn’t lost before or since his loss to Mayweather and so it would’ve been a fascinating match-up if they’d both been able to take each other in in their prime.

So all in all we certainly see that Floyd Mayweather is ‘Moneymaker’ by both name and nature. He’s not everyones cup of tea, with his brash and extravagant attitude on full display. At the same time though, it’s hard not to admire someone who has done it all, and essentially not put a foot wrong during their career.