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Mayweather To Young Fighters: To Say You Got Locked Up Is Not Cool

EIGHT-TIME AND FIVE DIVISION WORLD CHAMPION
FLOYD “MONEY” MAYWEATHER MEDIA ROUNDTABLE QUOTES
Photo Credit: John Filo/SHOWTIME
Atlanta (April 8) – Eight-Time and Five-Division World Champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather broke from his Las Vegas training camp over the weekend to attend the semifinals of the men’s college basketball tournament at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. While there, he also sat down with media members covering the tournament to discuss his upcoming WBC and Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship mega-fight against Six-Time and Four Division World Champion Robert Guerrero taking place Saturday, May 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas which will be produced and distributed by SHOWTIME PPV®.
Below please find quotes on an array of topics in “Money” Mayweather’s own words.
On the NCAA Tournament and Enjoyment of Basketball
“I love basketball. I honestly feel if you are not sweating and it is not blood, sweat and tears, it is not a sport. No disrespect to anyone who’s involved and they think it is a sport, but to me it’s just an activity if you don’t have blood, sweat and tears, then I think it is just an activity.
“This year I really thought it was going to be Indiana. One of my teams is still in it too, but unfortunately for me, I did not have them advancing to the Finals. I will watch the game and am probably going to watch the first half before I decide to make a bet. I have watched both teams [Lousiville and Michigan] and see how they play.”
“No one had Wichita State and I guess that is why they are called the ‘Shockers.’ Obviously that program is doing something right.
“I was telling Charles Barclay before my interview, during the Big East tournament, when Syracuse took the lead over Louisville, they started to play comfortably and Louisville came back and won the game. Same thing happened Saturday against Wichita State, but I think if Michigan takes the lead on Louisville, it is going to be harder for them to come back. Both teams are stacked with talent.
“These guys just poured their hearts out for the love of the game. I just saw that situation at Rutgers where the coach was throwing balls and choking those players and those players didn’t go over the edge. They knew they couldn’t because they weren’t in the position to pull their family out of a rough situation so they were in a tough spot. In that case you have to take the bumps and bruises that comes with those situations. but I don’t think it was right what was going on and treating those young college kids playing basketball.”
On His May 4 Championship Fight Against Robert Guerrero
“I have been off for a year now, so I am looking forward to getting back in the ring. Less than a month away, so I am excited.
“Robert Guerrero is a tough fighter, a solid, busy fighter. He only has one loss, a champion in multiple weight classes. Let’s see what he can do in there. I am sure he is going to be able to make adjustments in that squared circle just like I can, so we will have to see what happens on May 4th. We will have to see how the fight plays out. I just want the fans to tune in. It’s going to be an action-packed fight on May 4th. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get the victory. If I have to mix it up or box. I am going to bring it.
“He [Guerrero] did something right to get here. I am sure he is going to be on his ‘A’ game, but I am not really worried about what he can do. He needs to worry about what I can do because I have already proven what I can do in the ring.
“I am very appreciative of what boxing has done for me and I am glad to have given back so much to the sport too. I always wanted to be the best and I think I have proven that over the course of my career.
“I have been pushing myself in training camp. I think my body is going to look tremendous for this fight. I can’t say how my performance is going to be, but of course I am going to go out there and perform. I always am at my best.
“On May 4th I am going to go out there, be ready and hopefully he is ready too. This is the longest I have trained for any fight, so it should be a great night.
“I am going to dish it out against Robert Guerrero on this one. I am going to be the Mayweather that is active. I have young guys who are really pushing me in the gym for this fight. Sure I have bad days in the gym, but I don’t have bad fight nights, bad paydays.
“Everything is going in camp like it should go. My Dad and me have an understanding that we all work as a team so that is going well because I need my whole team. My uncle Roger is coming along as far as his health, but one thing is for sure, that is my family and I love them. We can’t choose our family and as my mother said in the documentary [30 DAYS IN MAY], they gave me a hand and I am just playing the hand they gave me.
“I really wouldn’t be here without my team. My career is not just about the money like some people want to believe. My career is about my legacy. It’s also about living, loving and laughing and enjoying life.
“I go through ups and downs. It’s a roller coaster ride. I just keep on going and do the best I can, but I am strong and am going to continue to survive. Continue to go strong not just for the sport of boxing, but to entertain the people too.
“I am happy to be with SHOWTIME and CBS. This is the beginning of our relationship and for the next 30 months I plan to give you action-packed fights.
“I flew to Atlanta for the Final Four, flew to Miami to check my property, I am heading back to Las Vegas to train, then have to make a stop in Los Angeles.
“Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion about me and my career. I honestly don’t really care what you say. I love my fans, but I don’t live for anybody except myself and my family. I am comfortable with myself. If people are out there saying ‘I don’t like Floyd Mayweather and he is only about the money,’ I am pretty sure I have some of their pay-per-view money too.”
On Heroes and Young Fighters
“I looked up to a lot of people coming up. I looked up to different people: my father, my uncle Roger, a lot of other fighters who have come before me too like Muhammad Ali and even Mike Tyson. I looked up to a lot of people. I always wanted to be the first to do something, so I was always listening and learning the best I could.
“The person you meet now is the same person you are going to meet down the road. I don’t care what car I am driving or jewelry I am wearing. I stay who I am regardless of what you think I might be or who you think I am.
“People always say, ‘If I had this much money, I would do this or I would do that.’ Well those people don’t actually have the money or are not in my position. As Stephen Espinoza just said, you don’t stay at the top for as long as I have just because. I obviously have been doing something right.
“My mindset has always been to be the best. I would rather be known as a smart fighter. If you go back and look at my interviews from when I was young, I always said the less you get hit, the longer you are going to be able to stay in the game. Going to toe-to-toe just because you can say you did it is not cool to me.
“Sure I have done it in some of my fights, like the Miguel Cotto fight, but there is also a limit. I couldn’t have done that in all of my 43 fights. There is a limit.
“I say to the young fighters that some things just aren’t cool. They think taking a lot of punishment and going toe-to-toe in every fight is cool? That’s not cool. Or to be able to say they got locked up. That’s not cool either. I know I have made mistakes but I can wake up every morning and say I have been honest admitting that.
“Also for the young fighters they should make sure they have a good team around them. People that are going to keep it real with you and can help you make the right decision. There are limits to everything you do. Even though I might seem edgier at times, I have limits too. I am older now and I understand it better. Things can come to a young good fighter so fast they can get caught up in a bad situation. I am going to continue to mentor the young, up-and-coming fighters. I will try to be the best mentor I can for some of these young fighters.
“For young people I say, work hard and dedicate yourself to your life. Be respectful to your parents, go to school because education is important and never compromise to be the best that you can be.
“I want to be able to get around and be sharp when my career is over. I want to be like Rafael Garcia who is here with me today. He’s almost 90 years old, hanging with us, still jogging, driving, and wearing sunglasses. I want to be like that when I am older. I want to be able to hang out with my grandkids and be the patriarch of my family.”
On Training and Music
“If I was to identify with a rapper I would probably have to say Tupac. Just with everything that has happened in my career and what he rapped about and his own life struggles, I would have to say.
“As far as listening to music, I am older now and I am an R&B man. I got a lot of nice cars and when I am driving around in a nice Rolls Royce taking Ms. Jackson out to eat, I’m not trying to be bumpin’ some wild music. Even in the gym or when I run with cars following me with the music, I tell them to give me some old school music, all old school.”
# # #
“MAY DAY: Mayweather vs. Guerrero,” a 12-round fight for Mayweather’s WBC Welterweight World Championship and the vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship, is promoted by Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly Auto Parts, AT&T, Star Trek Into Darkness and Valvoline. The mega-event will take place Saturday, May 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will be produced and distributed live by SHOWTIME PPV® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The event can be heard in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP). Also featured will be Daniel Ponce de Leon vs. Abner Mares, a 12-round fight for Ponce de Leon’s WBC Featherweight World Championship, former IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz facing veteran Alexander Munoz in a 10-round junior featherweight bout and rising star J’Leon Love squaring off against recent world title challenger Gabriel Rosado in a 10-round middleweight battle for the vacant NABF Middleweight Championship.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.
The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.
The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.
Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.
Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.
A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.
In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.
Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.
In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.
Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.
Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Canelo Alvarez Upends Dancing Machine William Scull in Saudi Arabia

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who has acquired a new nickname – “The Face of Boxing” – is accustomed to fighting on Cinco De Mayo weekend, but this year was different. For the first time, Canelo was fighting outside the continent of North America and entering the ring at an awkward hour. His match with William Scull started at 6:30 on a Sunday morning in Riyadh.
In the opposite corner was 32-year-old William Scull, an undefeated (23-0) Cuban by way of Germany, whose performance was better suited to “Dancing With the Stars” than to a world title fight. Constantly bouncing from side to side but rarely letting his hands go, Scull frustrated Canelo who found it near-impossible to corner him, but one can’t win a fight solely on defense and the Mexican superstar was returned the rightful winner in a bout that was a fitting cap to a desultory two days of Saudi-promoted prizefighting. The scores were 115-113, 116-112, and 119-109. In winning, Canelo became a fully unified super middleweight champion twice over.
Terence Crawford was in attendance and HE Turki Alalshikh made it official: Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) and Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) will meet in the Fight of the Century (Alalshikh’s words) on Sept. 12 in Las Vegas at the home of the city’s NFL team, the Raiders. For whatever it’s worth, each of Canelo’s last seven fights has gone the full 12 rounds.
Semi-wind-up
In a match between the WBC world cruiserweight title-holder and the WBC world cruiserweight “champion in recess” (don’t ask), the former, Badou Jack, brought some clarity to the diadem by winning a narrow decision over Noel Mikaelian. One of the judges had it a draw (114-114), but the others gave the fight to “Jack the Ripper” by 115-113 scores.
A devout Muslim who is now a full-time resident of Saudi Arabia, the Sweden-born Jack, a three-division title-holder, had the crowd in his corner. Now 41 years old, he advanced his record to 29-3-3 (17). It was the first pro loss for Mikaelian (27-1), a Florida-based Armenian who was subbing for Ryan Rozicki.
The distracted CompuBox operator credited Mikaelian with throwing 300 more punches but there was no controversy.
Tijuana’s Jaime Munguia, a former junior middleweight title-holder, avenged his shocking loss to Bruno Sarace with a unanimous 12-round decision in their rematch. This was Munguia’s first fight with Eddy Reynoso in his corner. The scores were 117-111 and 116-112 twice.
Surace’s one-punch knockout of Munguia in mid-December in Tijuana was the runaway pick for the 2024 Upset of the Year. Heading in, Munguia was 44-1 with his lone defeat coming at the hands of Canelo Alvarez. Munguia had won every round against Surace before the roof fell in on him.
Surace won a few rounds tonight, but Munguia was the busier fighter and landed the cleaner shots. It was the first pro loss for Surace (26-1-2) and ended his 23-fight winning streak. The Frenchman hails for Marseilles.
Heavyweights
In a 10-round heavyweight match fought at a glacial pace, Martin Bakole (21-2-1) and Efe Ajagba (20-1-1) fought to a draw. One of the judges favored Ajagba 96-94 but he was outvoted by his cohorts who each had it 95-95.
Bakole, a 7/2 favorite, came in at 299 pounds, 15 more than he carried in his signature win over Jared Anderson, and looked sluggish. He was never able to effectively close off the ring against the elusive Ajagba who fought off his back foot and failed to build on his early lead.
The fight between the Scotch-Congolese campaigner Bakole and his Nigerian-American foe was informally contested for the heavyweight championship of Africa. That “title” remains vacant.
In a 6-rounder, heavy-handed Cuban light heavyweight Brayon Leon, a stablemate of Canelo Alvarez, was extended the distance for the first time while advancing his record to 7-0 at the expense of Mexico’s Aaron Roche (11-4-1). Leon knocked Roche to the canvas in the fourth round with a right-left combination, but the Mexican stayed the course while eating a lot of hard punches.
Photo credit: Leigh Dawney / Queensberry Promotions
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