Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the pound-for-pound king of boxing, raking in king's ransoms each time he fights. After easily dispatching Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, though, Floyd may find it difficult to attract so many fans to watch him decimate more opponents that are widely perceived as below Alvarez's caliber.
This is why the next step for "Money" Mayweather might be to take his show on the road, or even overseas. Showtime executive Stephen Espinoza is thinking about a "territory by territory" approach for Mayweather's next four fights, which represent the maximum amount of bouts on his current Showtime deal.
"The first one to knock down is the UK, because that's the one that's easy to transition to," Espinoza said. "The Money Team, Mayweather Promotions, [promoting] his own fights, potentially. And once we get that base established in the UK, then pick another territory and continue."
A fight in the UK leaves one potential opponent as the clear frontrunner-Amir Khan. Khan must get past Devon Alexander in December, but he's already been talked up by Espinoza because of his fast hands and accuracy. Showtime is looking for a different style of opponent for Floyd, seeing as how Mayweather has outclassed several larger power punchers.
A move to the UK may be a move of desperation for Showtime, owing to a potential loss of interest in Mayweather's future fights thanks to perceived lack of legitimate competition. Mayweather tends to use his defense to the fullest, avoiding crowd-pleasing firefights.
"There's nothing cool about taking punishment. Everybody talks about pleasing the fans, but if you don't have all your faculties and all your screws are loose, the fans are going to move on to the next," Mayweather said before proclaiming he could've floored Alvarez.
"I truly believe I could have banged with Canelo and eventually knocked him out in probably the eighth round, but I could have taken a lot of punishment also, which could have messed my career up to where I wouldn't have been able to fight four more fights," Mayweather said. "It hurts my feelings to look at [Muhammad] Ali's situation. He fought for the people, to please them. You've got to fight to please yourself first. Self-preservation."
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