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Floyd Mayweather spoke with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Friday about tonight’s fight between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, as well as the ongoing talks with Conor McGregor.
Listen to the full interview here.
Mayweather’s pick for Canelo-Chavez
“I think that I lean toward Canelo, probably in the late rounds, knockout in the late rounds. Canelo has more experience in big fights. But Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, you know, he comes from a fighting family, he has a lot of fights under his belt, but not as much experience as Canelo. Canelo has a lot of experience as far as being in big fights with myself, with Lara, also with Miguel Cotto. ... So we’ll see how it plays out, but I’m leaning toward Canelo, late round knockout.”
Mayweather on the size of the fight
“I think it’s huge for the Hispanics. For the Hispanics, it’s very, very huge. It’s good for boxing, period. It’s good for boxing. I know the ultimate goal, what everybody wants to see, they wanna see Canelo and GGG. It takes time to build a fight of that magnitude. But this is a very interesting matchup. I believe tomorrow, that Julio Cesar Chavez is the bigger man, in size and in weight. But Canelo has a lot more experience.”
On Chavez at the catchweight
“This guy started off at 135, if I’m not mistaken. I can remember when he used to fight on my undercards. He comes from a small weight, no different than Canelo. Worked his way up, constantly put on weight like myself. I started off at 130 and I moved up. I don’t know if it’s gonna help him or hurt him. We’ll see how things go.”
On Conor McGregor, etc.
“Only thing I can do is have patience like I did before. No one thought the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight would happen, but I had patience. We must have patience, take our time, and just wait. Do I believe the fight is gonna happen? I really don’t know. Me and my side, me, Al Haymon, Mayweather Promotions, we’re ready to go. As soon as they sign on the dotted line, then it’s time to go to training camp.”
“What’s the hold up? From what I was told, Conor McGregor has a baby that’s due in May. So after the baby is due, then we go from there.”
“You have to work your way to become the A-side. Like I said before, in the UFC, he is the A-side. But this is Mayweather Promotions coming together with UFC, we’re working together. The reason we’re the A-side is because of numbers. We look at our pay-per-view numbers, there’s no comparison. As far as a guaranteed purse, his largest guarantee was no more than $5 million.”