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By: Sean Crose
“We’re gonna make it happen,” Floyd Mayweather says on a TMZ video clip released on Thursday. He’s referring to a fight with Japanese kickboxing and MMA wunderkind Tenshin Nasukawa. The bout was recently announced to much fanfare by Mayweather, Nasukawa and Rizn Fighting Federation. Then, almost as soon as the news broke, Mayweather appeared to walk it back. “First and foremost,” Mayweather posted on Instagram within days of the announcement, “I want it to be clear that I, Floyd Mayweather, never agreed to an official bout with Tenshin Nasukawa.” It appeared then that matters might be settled, but this recent clip of Mayweather, as he emerges from Peter Marco’s jeweler in Beverely Hills, clearly suggests otherwise.
According to Mayweather, the bout will be an exhibition. “It’s going to be the highest paid exhibition ever,” he boasts to TMZ. “Just for promoting this event, so far I made 7 figures.” Mayweather is known to brag about his money, but in the clip, he defends himself against charges that he’s facing financial difficulty. “It’s more like this,” he says. “Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Oprah, they still go out there and do different things.” As for the belief that the former pound for pound kingpin may be strapped for cash?
“I’m far from hurting for money,” he says.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Mayweather adds in the clip. “Just because I’m retired from boxing. I still make appearances worldwide and make a ton of money.” Unlike his insanely lucrative novelty bout with Conor McGregor in the summer of 2017, Mayweather makes it clear that this bout will not go on his record. “Small, 9-minute exhibition,” he says. “It’s going to be a little boxing exhibition…no kicking at all.” The fight was originally supposed to go down on December 31st outside of Tokyo. No news has been presented as to when or where the match might now go down.
