Floyd Mayweather: I'm interested in promoting MMA fighters

Floyd Mayweather is an athlete, even in retirement, who can dominate headlines on a weekly basis.

Mayweather has not fought since beating Andre Berto last September and retiring afterwards with a perfect 49-0 record. During his run as the world’s greatest boxer, Mayweather had a few well-publicized spats with UFC stars Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor.

Now, with both fighters losing in the last six months — McGregor, most recently at Saturday’s UFC 196 to Nate Diaz — Mayweather has every opportunity to sit back and gloat. But he’s not. And truth be told, he never really cared about those beefs anyway.

“I never once said anything negative about Ronda Rousey,” Mayweather told FightHype.com. “Never. Never once. I never once said anything disrespectful about … I want to make sure I get his name right … Conor McGregor. OK. I never said anything negative about them.

“Now, I can wake up on the wrong side of the bed and not be happy that day; because I’m not well rested. So, [the media] can ask me a question about [them] — I’m being real with you, I’m not happy, I’m being sick — I may say, you know what, ‘I don’t give a [expletive] about them.’ And you know what the media is going to say: ‘Ah, Floyd said [expletive] them!’ When I basically said I don’t give a [expletive] about them. Basically, I’m saying I don’t even want to talk about them today, I want to just talk about me. But they’re going to twist my words  and put it out there they want to put it out there.”

According to Mayweather, he has no issue with the sport of MMA. In fact, he embraces it. He doesn’t mind that UFC fighters presumably used his name to drum up interest. It’s the fight business, and it’s a business Mayweather understands very well.

“If I was involved with MMA sports, then my beef would be with MMA guys,” Mayweather said. “But I’m not involved in MMA sports, I don’t have no plans in getting involved as far as competing physical in MMA, but I do look forward to getting fighters and doing MMA fights in the future. And I’m talking about 2016.”