Floyd Mayweather Jr. described his September rematch with Manny Pacquiao as an exhibition and said the Sphere in Las Vegas is not a confirmed venue, contradicting the official announcement made by Netflix and both promotional teams just five weeks ago.
In an interview with Mike Dixon of Vegas Sports Today posted Saturday, Mayweather was direct.
“This is actually not a fight, it’s an exhibition,” Mayweather said. “You know I got an exhibition with Mike Tyson also, another exhibition in Greece.”
On the venue: “As of right now, we don’t know where the fight is gonna be. The Sphere is one of the places they talked about, so we don’t know if it’s 100%.”
The February 23 announcement framed the bout as a sanctioned professional rematch with Mayweather’s 50-0 record on the line, streaming globally on Netflix from the $2.3 billion Sphere. Pacquiao said he wanted Mayweather “to live with the one loss on his professional record.” Mayweather’s own response at the time: “I already fought and beat Manny once. This time will be the same result.”
If the bout is reclassified as an exhibition, Mayweather’s record would no longer be at stake, the regulatory framework of a sanctioned contest would not apply, and the competitive stakes that drove public interest in the rematch would effectively disappear. Mayweather has fought eight exhibitions since retiring in 2017. None went on his record.
Neither Netflix, Pacquiao’s team, nor any of the event’s co-promoters have publicly responded. Five weeks ago, this was the first professional boxing match in the history of the Sphere with a perfect record on the line. As of Saturday night, neither of those things appears certain.
