Trainer: Floyd Mayweather laying groundwork for comeback

Floyd Mayweather has remained firm that he has no desire to return to boxing. However, Gennady Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, believes that Mayweather is using his retirement to build toward a huge return fight with his unbeaten knockout artist.

“He just seems to be fixated on Golovkin,” Sanchez told the "On The Ropes" podcast. “I’ve seen three or four pieces in the last couple of weeks where he’s talking about beating Golovkin. It looks like he’s laying the groundwork for something, whether it’s Golovkin or somebody else. Floyd is laying the groundwork for a comeback.”

The boxing world has been clamoring for a showdown between GGG and Mayweather for quite some time. Golovkin has even offered to come down in weight to put the fight on a level playing field. However, Mayweather has shrugged off the Kazakh fighter on several occasions and opted to go with Andre Berto for his retirement fight. But since Mayweather’s supposed swan song, the topic of a return fight and GGG has been brought up again and again.

“Triple G, not being disrespectful, but he's straight up and down, no special effects,” Mayweather said. “That’s easy work.”

He’s also expressed that he would never be interested in moving up from 147 pounds to 154 pounds to meet Golovkin. But regardless of the weight differential, Mayweather doesn’t see the man who has knocked out his last 21 opponents as much of a threat.

Sanchez doesn’t see Mayweather being necessarily dismissive of the opportunity. Instead, he sees “Money” using GGG’s name to drum up interest in a return fight. Considering that Mayweather is just effective as a promoter as he is a fighter, this doesn’t come as a surprise to Sanchez.

“I think you lay the ground work, you say things to see how people react [and] you say things to see if it’s something that the public wants and he’s gauging that,” Sanchez said. “We’ve always known that Floyd was a great businessman, so it’s all part of a plan for him. There’s nothing that he says or does that is not calculated.”

The rise of Golovkin has been well documented and a showdown with Mayweather could potentially do huge numbers considering the stark contrast in styles and the fact that Golovkin his been rolling through the sport ever since he secured the silver medal as a middleweight in the 2004 Summer Olympics. He’ll face Dominic Wade on April 23 with the plan being to take on Canelo Alvarez in September in what would be the biggest fight that can currently be made between active fighters. However, should Mayweather decide to return, it will be assumed that a Mayweather-GGG bout would take precedence over one with Alvarez.

The likelihood right now for a Mayweather-GGG fight is slim, but you never know what Floyd Mayweather is up to.