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Mayweather plans for 2015 retirement, denies Pacquiao negotiations

Floyd Mayweather re-affirms his plans to retire after his September 2015 fight and quells reports of Pacquiao negotiations.

Eric Jamison

Floyd Mayweather says he plans on walking out of the ring for the final time one year from now. After the rematch with Marcos Maidana this weekend, Floyd will have only have two fights remaining on his record-breaking Showtime contract. Those two remaining fights are penciled in to be held next May and September, which will wrap up his Hall of Fame career. Once finished with his own fighting career, Floyd plans to shift his primary focus to building the Mayweather Promotions brand as a promoter.

"I only got two more fights left (after Saturday) and after the next two fights I just want to build the Mayweather Promotions brand," Mayweather said.

"My next fight is in May and my last fight is in September, so a year from now will be my last fight."

"I'll still work with my stable of fighters, still build the Mayweather Promotions brand," he said. "We have young fighters that we work with."

CEO of Mayweather Promotions, Leonard Ellerbe, is looking forward to seeing his chief benefactor walk away will all the accolades and money.

"I'm happy. He deserves it. He's put in the work his whole career. Grinding, done everything the fans have asked of him," Ellerbe said. "He's had a remarkable career. It's time to hang 'em up. Made all the money you can make. What else is there to do in the sport? There's nothing else to prove."

Maybe nothing to prove, per se, but the general boxing public will always wonder what might have been if the two pound-for-pound greats would have faced each other during their primes. Now, albeit about 4-5 years too late, there would still be tremendous interest should a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao take place, mostly for nostalgic reasons. Yet despite Bob Arum and Manny Pacquiao's recent attempts to satiate the public by declaring that negotiations for boxing's biggest fight in 20 years are underway, Mayweather has dispelled all that as an illusion to sell their underwhelming PPV fight.

"Not true," Mayweather said. "I can't say what the future holds, but Arum and Pacquiao is trying to sell tickets for the (fight with the) guy named (Chris) Algieri. Trying to sell tickets for that fight. I don't know where they fighting, I don't know anything about what Top Rank is doing."

Of course most of us figured as much, as this has been a pretty routine dog and pony show from Bob Arum in recent years, but many still held a glimmer of hope that it may actually happen. Does this mean the fight can't happen within Mayweather's next two outings? I still think there are way too many digits in that equation to dismiss it completely, but after all these years its obviously foolhardy to say it will. That said, I still can't help but think that a promotion billed as Mayweather's final fight, against Manny Pacquiao, would be quite the sight to behold. Not to mention a great final way to cash out of the business.

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