Floyd Mayweather Hypes Upcoming Bout, Knocks Pacquiao Camp

The hype machine restarted on Tuesday for the rescheduled Sept. 19 comeback fight of welterweight champ Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is set to re-enter the ring against lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez following a 13-month long "retirement" from boxing.

Mayweather (39-0, 25 KOs) -- the sports' pound-for-pound king until he stepped away from boxing in June 2008 to pursue a career in show business -- sustained a rib injury during training in mid-June, which forced a postponement of the scheduled July 18 welterweight bout against Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Now Mayweather, 32, is back to work training at his Las Vegas gym. He says he's as hungry as ever and fully committed to this return, all the while shoving aside any discussion about a much-anticipated showdown on the horizon with Filipino champion and reigning pound-for-pound star Manny Pacquiao.

Money, specifically Pacquaio promoter Bob Arum's demand for a 50-50 split, is preventing that fight from happening, Mayweather said.

"Bob Arum, he had a chance to take the Manny Pacquiao fight,'' Mayweather said Tuesday in a conference call, "but he keeps talking about [how] he wants 50-50. And he knows that's not going to happen. That's why we will never get that fight. If Bob Arum wasn't trying to be so greedy, then the fight would happen."

Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer pointed out that Mayweather's previous two PPV fights, against Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya, drew 3.5 million buys in the U.S. Pacquaio, Schaefer claimed, "did a little more than half of that,'' against those two opponents, and that alone should set the market value for Mayweather.

Mayweather says he remains boxing's pound-for-pound king, despite not being in the ring since his Dec. 2007 knockout of Ricky Hatton. Other fighters, he said, even Pacquaio, are just chasing his leftovers and so are their promoters.

"It's like a steak, a T-bone steak. After I eat all the meat off the steak, [other promoters] throw them the bone,'' Mayweather said of pound-for-pound challengers. "They throw them the bone."

And Mayweather made it clear he's returning to the ring for the love of the sport and not because he has to financially, despite recent reports detailing his documented problems with the IRS and various creditors.

"Michael Jackson – you hear [money] rumors about everybody,'' Mayweather said. "As of right now, I'm doing my interview from my 22,000-square foot home in Las Vegas, Nev. And I feel good. I'm happy."

So what happened with the rib injury? Mayweather won't say exactly how he hurt himself, or provide details about the injury.

"It happened in training,'' Mayweather said. "Believe me, it wasn't a small guy that did it, but it didn't even come from sparring, so don't nobody know what it came from. Freak accidents happen in training.

Another mystery is the contract fight weight. Both sides will only say that this is a welterweight fight, and hinted that 140 pounds will be the minimum. The welterweight limit is 147 pounds. Why the secrecy here for a non-title fight?

How about show business? "It's the most anticipated weigh-in ever because everyone will want to know what the weight is! Be at the weigh-in!" Schaefer said.

Despite rumblings that the event wasn't selling well prior to Mayweather's injury -- "This clearly is the single-most anticipated fight of the year, contrary to some reports ... this fight is doing extremely well,'' Schaefer said -- the Marquez camp doesn't doubt that Mayweather truly hurt himself.

"I think there is solid evidence from paperwork from his doctors,'' Marquez said through an interpreter. The popular Mexican champion remained "calm" during the Mayweather injury, he said, and took his family to a beach resort for a week to relax.

De La Hoya, who is promoting Marquez, said the winner of Mayweather-Marquez -- now conveniently rescheduled for the huge-drawing PPV weekend of Mexican Independence Day -- should be considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Why? Because De La Hoya believes Marquez beat Pacquaio twice, despite a draw and a split decision in Pacquaio's favor in the two fighters' previous bouts at featherweight and super featherweight.

Asked to specifically choose which boxer is best, Mayweather or Pacquaio, De La Hoya -- who has fought both – said, "I would have to go with Floyd.

"Obviously with all due respect to Juan Manuel, he is obviously up there ... but Mayweather, he's an all-around good fighter,'' said De La Hoya said, who may have been promoting this fight rather than speaking what he believes, after Pacquaio destroyed him last December at 145 pounds. "When I fought Manny, obviously the circumstances were different. But I felt more 'skill' coming out of Mayweather than I did with Pacquaio."