Floyd Mayweather Released From Jail, No Plans For Next Fight

As was mentioned yesterday, Floyd Mayweather was freed from county jail in Las Vegas at Midnight last night, leaving with friend and business partner 50 Cent.

Mayweather served two months of a 90-day sentence in a domestic violence case, and had sought an even earlier release in mid-June, just 12 days after he surrendered to authorities to begin serving his sentence, which had been delayed until after he could fight Miguel Cotto on May 5, a bout which Mayweather won, and which was hugely successful financially.

But that appeal, which would have had Mayweather, 35, serving the rest of his sentence under house arrest, was denied, and Floyd was left to serve the rest of his time separated from the other inmates due to his celebrity status.

There is some hope that Mayweather (43-0, 26 KO) will be back in the ring before the calendar turns over to 2013, but the schedule has filled up pretty well for the last quarter of the year. One potential, seemingly open date would be December 8, about a month after press rival Manny Pacquiao is due back in the ring on November 10. If Mayweather is to fight in Vegas, he needs a new license, but given how much money he brings into the city, that's basically a given. There's no way that Las Vegas is going to turn him down.

As for a Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight (and the names definitely go in that order now) in 2012, that seems incredibly unlikely. Bob Arum did say that working with 50 Cent and TMT Promotions makes the fight more possible than Mayweather being linked to Golden Boy, but I can't imagine (1) Floyd choosing to fight Manny now, straight off of a loss, and (2) fighting Manny right out of a point where he couldn't properly train at all for two months.

The other issue with fighting again this year, besides timing, open dates, and whether or not Mayweather feels he's up to his normal excellent standard of conditioning, is finding a proper opponent, but I feel like sometimes people forget that a year ago, Floyd fought Victor Ortiz, whose biggest fight and win came against Andre Berto, a quality fighter but no major star, and it's not like Ortiz brought a large fan base or a lot of money with him or anything. Mayweather is the money man, and will sell a million-plus on pay-per-view no matter who he fights. So it could be any number of top stars, mid-range stars, non-stars who are good fighters -- don't count someone out just because they're not a "superstar." Ortiz wasn't either.