Floyd Mayweather Jr. talks Jake and Logan Paul, boxing's resurgence and Triller's lies

Floyd Mayweather Jr., who expects to make $50 million to $100 million on Sunday when he faces Logan Paul in an exhibition, tells Kevin Iole that he doesn't mind how the Paul brothers have disrupted the boxing world.

Video Transcript

KEVIN IOLE: Hey folks. I am Kevin Iole. Welcome to Yahoo Sports and a guy that I have interviewed many, many times, but not in a situation like this, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., the best ever, Money May, the pound for pound greatest when he was fighting. Retired now but coming back for an exhibition bout on Sunday in Miami at Hard Rock Stadium on pay-per-view against Logan Paul. It's almost hard to believe it's been since when, 2007 when you were in WWF where you had a fight like this right when you fought the Big Show?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Yes, but remember Kevin I fought a guy that was 6' 3", Tony Pep, another good tall guy that was raging and a good boxer. So I've been in there with tall guys before. You know, I think this guy banging on his youth and his height. Well, we'll just see come Sunday.

KEVIN IOLE: I said in my story that I wrote about Logan Paul today I said if you wanted to you'd beat this guy within an inch of his life, right. So we know that--

KEVIN IOLE: We know that Kevin. You know that Kevin as well I know that.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: So what do we expect to see, right? I know you're saying this is not a real fight, this is Entertainment but you've got to sell it to the fans somehow. So what is this that we're going to see when you walk into the ring?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: We're going to see a spectacle. But we got a great undercard also, Kevin. We got, we've got a great undercard of so many young up and coming fighters. We also got Bottle Jack, another think two time, three time World Champion. We've got Chad Ochocinco, a former NFL wide receiver, another a great NFL player, former great NFL player. Is going to be crazy. I chose [INAUDIBLE]

KEVIN IOLE: [INAUDIBLE] a good fight against Luis Arias.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Oh yeah, I chose Vegas first to take this fight to. They turned it down so now we in Miami.

KEVIN IOLE: There you are, OK. I was wondering because you're a MGM guy so I kind of thought [INAUDIBLE].

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: MGM said you know what, we want this fight. Every hotel said we want this fight. Nevada Boxing Commission, they didn't want it. So my second home is Miami so we're here now.

KEVIN IOLE: There we are, OK. Well, now we, now we have a thing. What do you make of the way Logan is going about this thing? You know when, when his brother Jake stole your cap Logan was like, oh it was a mistake and blah blah blah blah blah. And now all of a sudden you know this week he's talking about I can land a shot I can-- you know, the best fighters in the world couldn't hit you. How is a guy that has only fought a YouTuber, I don't care how much bigger he is than you, how is he going to hit you?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Kevin, one thing you know about me, you have interviewed me so many times and one thing you know as well as all the box and media and all the box and critics and all the fighters know, Floyd Mayweather can fight. And I've been hit by some of the best. And you're going to tell me that Logan Paul now is harder than Marcos Maidana?

KEVIN IOLE: Or Shane Mosley?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Shane Mosley or I'm asking you. But it is what it is. [INAUDIBLE]

KEVIN IOLE: I don't think it's you getting hit by it, it's like you not getting hit by it. I mean, you know Manny Pacquiao couldn't hit you. And so that's the thing that gets to me like hey, you know what maybe he hits you but I would say the odds are probably against that given how good you are defensively.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Kevin, Kevin we need to let him land a couple of punches to check his power out. We want to check his power out. We want to let him land a couple of punches to see how strong he is because he may be that size, he may need to be fighting that mini, mini flyweight.

KEVIN IOLE: You have that Showtime microphone in front of you and so-- and we're talking about Logan Paul. His brother Jake Paul signed with Showtime. He was fighting for Triller, just beat a UFC fighter, or former UFC fighter Ben Askren.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Yes.

KEVIN IOLE: I wonder, what do you make of this trend of seeing you know, these guys go into boxing. It's a sport. You don't play boxing as James Toney once said. You understand that very well. But now you get these guys going in and I just don't know what to make of it. What do you make of this trend where you know, the Paul brothers and others are trying to come out and fight when they have never done it before?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Eventually, not right-- eventually, Jake Paul is going to fight a real fighter. And when he fight a real fighter you know as well as I know what's going happen. But as of right now they're having fun, they're making money, their fan base is growing, so why not? I'm not upset but a lot of fighters is upset because these guys are making you know, they're not making more money than me but they're making a lot more money than other fighters. So a lot of fighters are very upset. I'm not upset.

KEVIN IOLE: You know, I know you've said many times it's going take a lot of money to get you to come back. You made a lot of money for [INAUDIBLE] when you fought him in Japan a year or so ago. Give us an idea, what's the check-- I saw you one time held up a check to me for $100,000,000. You held that to me after you fought Manny Pacquiao. I saw that check in your hands.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Well, [INAUDIBLE].

KEVIN IOLE: How much are you going to make this week?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Well, I've seen $100,000,000 over 12 times. So I mean just building up to this fight I've already made $30,000,000 so we'll see. You know, we probably can make somewhere upwards between I say between $50,000,000 and $100,000,000. So that's not bad for a retired, for a retired fighter that's 44.

KEVIN IOLE: So is anybody else on the card other than you and Logan get a piece of the paper? [INAUDIBLE] Jack in the share in this since he's the professional main event?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Well, one thing I make sure that I do, Floyd Mayweather and Mayweather Promotions we take care of our fighters. We make sure our fighters get the lion's share. So-- and no disrespect to another none of the guys that's on this undercard, but you can just take me and Logan Paul and put us on this card and the fight's going to sell. So I'm going to make sure that everybody that's on this card get paid and get paid well.

KEVIN IOLE: Is it a million selling pay-per-view you think?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: I really don't know because so many people are stealing events on social media now. So it's not like it was back in the day where you buy it on pay-per-view, and you do crazy numbers, you do 4,000,000 homes, 5,000,000 homes. Now everybody is stealing and they get upset, they get upset when you put them on blast.

KEVIN IOLE: Right.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: Which you have to put them on blast because you taking money out of my mouth, you taking money out of Showtime mouth, my children mouth and my team mouth.

KEVIN IOLE: Do doubt. Hey, I wonder you know, you've always been thinking outside the box. And you know, I know you're doing this on Sunday because you know Super Bowl Sunday the NBA all-Star game on a Sunday, I wonder what do you think of what Triller's doing by putting the musical acts with the shows. And do you feel like that's [INAUDIBLE] you know that's something that could become more mainstream in boxing where you combine those two because you know what we know when you started embracing hip hop and the hip hop community is when you really took-- you we're always a great fighter but you really became a draw when you embraced the hip-hop community.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: No. No because I embraced the hip hop community from the beginning.

KEVIN IOLE: I guess when they started embracing you maybe?

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: No, it's not that no. What I did was when I became my own promoter that's when I took things to that next level.

KEVIN IOLE: Yeah.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: When I was able to step outside the box, do stuff like Dancing with the Stars and stuff like WWE, being smart, going over just going over to other parts of the world, embracing my fans and touching the people, that's how I was able to become a household name and become so big in a sport of boxing.

KEVIN IOLE: No doubt, no doubt about it. Do you, do you feel that it'll be a trend though that you know, that now that promoters are seeing this? Like you know Triller hasn't put on until now maybe on June 19 their card might be pretty good but you know they haven't put on a compelling argument so to speak.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: What I don't like, but-- Yeah, but what I don't like is this you know Triller you know, I never-- I don't know who owns Triller but congratulations to whoever owns Triller and whatever you guys are doing. I'm Mayweather Promotion and I'm PBC 'til the day I D-I-E so I don't worry about nobody else. We're the best.

Now Triller, if you guys want to-- going to promote in boxing you guys have to be honest. Just like the last time these guys was writing numbers talking about the numbers that Jake Paul was doing which was total lies with the pay-per-view numbers. I can't lie as far as my Nielsen ratings. You see my rating, my stuff, is public knowledge so people can see everything that I'm doing. When these guys talk about the numbers that they're doing they're lying.

KEVIN IOLE: Well Floyd you know I could go on with you for a long time. I'm getting the high sign that it's time to, to cut this. So I will, I'll let you roll brother. I appreciate you. On Sunday in Miami on pay-per-view Floyd Mayweather against Logan Paul. Floyd, good luck.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.: All right, thank you.