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50 Cent will start off his boxing promotional career on Saturday night, when he brings Yuriorkis Gamboa back to the ring on the Pacquiao-Marquez IV pay-per-view.
Recently, 50 has made public challenges for his former friend and woulda-been business partner Floyd Mayweather to face Gamboa, an idea that is absurd to boxing fans who realize the difference between the welterweight/junior middleweight Mayweather and the featherweight/super featherweight Gamboa.
But Gamboa, 50 Cent says, has a real beef with Mayweather, stemming from Mayweather's decision to not join up with 50 Cent's TMT Promotions idea, which has now turned into SMS Promotions, and basically turning his back on 50 Cent and the fighters the rapper-actor had signed to the company.
"He's upset with Floyd's choice not to invest after helping him into this actual situation. The initial conversations were between Floyd and Gamboa. I came at the tail-end, when Floyd was actually going to jail. Because with Floyd going to jail, who was going to provide the finances to actually make the release [from Top Rank]? I actually took care of it while he was gone and it turned into something between me and Gamboa."
50 Cent says it was he who paid the $1.2 million to get Gamboa free from his Top Rank contract, which in the end resulted in Gamboa returning on a Top Rank-promoted card, anyway.
You'll recall that when Gamboa went AWOL and bailed on his April fight with Brandon Rios, he turned up at Mayweather's gym in Las Vegas. Top Rank's Bob Arum blamed the Mayweather camp for getting in his ear and convincing him to skip that fight, which led to the court saga, and eventually to 50 Cent buying out the contract.
Gamboa was also part of Mayweather's entourage for his May 5 fight with Miguel Cotto, as seen in the story photo above.
But if 50 Cent really thinks this is a world where Yuriorkis Gamboa should fight Floyd Mayweather, he's still crazy. It's just not a fight that anyone should want to see. We're talking a four-division jump at best, and not gradually, but in one fight.