I don't need Manny Pacquiao. I make $70 million every time I fight - Floyd

LAS VEGAS – Floyd Mayweather Jr. had to get his mouth stitched up. Victor Ortiz went scalp-to-chin against him in the corner, late in the fourth round Saturday.

Ortiz would be penalized rather drastically for that mistake, and for others, but it didn't keep Mayweather out of the clinic

Or off the microphone.

Somehow all that oral discomfort did not restrain Mayweather from declaring the following:

•“If I became a heavyweight and started beating the Klitschkos, everybody would say I was on something. But he can go from 105 to 154 and it's all right. Come on, guys.”

•“Everybody knew Ray Leonard was going to be a great athlete from the beginning. Everybody knew the same thing about Michael Jordan. Floyd Mayweather was always going to be a great athlete. But you turn 29 and all of a sudden you pop in here and start making a leap forward and beating people? It's not natural.”

• “He's got two bosses. He has to give up 30 percent of his revenue. I left Bob Arum because I wanted to fight for myself. Now I keep 100 percent of the revenue. They say I'm ignorant. Well, I must not be too ignorant if I'm keeping all the revenue.”

“I don't need Manny Pacquiao. I make $70 million every time I fight.”

Well, at least he's not obsessed with the guy.

Pacquiao-Mayweather is boxing's destination fight. It also has become the Mars landing of sports. Irresistible but no longer inevitable.

It became even more poignant Saturday night when Mayweather found a new way to win a championship match — give Ortiz the old one-two when Ortiz was waiting for the restart command from referee Joe Cortez.

Mayweather simply understood the fight had resumed before Ortiz did.

Now, it's true that a gentlemanly fellow such as Alexis Arguello or even Pacquiao would have waited until Ortiz was ready.

Mayweather's ambush was the rough boxing equivalent of Jered Weaver throwing strike one while Mark Teixeira was digging in.

Legal? Yes. Ethical? Irrelevant.

“He had just done me dirty (with the head butt) and then he wanted to be real nice,” Mayweather said. “So what goes around comes around. This is the hurt business.”

Gustavo Arrellano, Ortiz's manager, made some noises about going to the Nevada commission, but that will float about as well as his call for a rematch, even though Mayweather shrugged and said fine.

Maybe that would work if Ortiz had been winning the fight, but Mayweather's right hand was busy playing a Keith Moon drum solo on Ortiz's forehead.

“I was busting him up slowly,” Mayweather said. “He was going down at some point no matter what.”

Said Ortiz: “My strategy was to start taking over in the fifth or sixth round because we noticed Mayweather liked to start off strong.”

But Mayweather has changed his approach, too. He goes after people. It wasn't the safest play against Ortiz on paper but it looked fine for 11 minutes, 59 seconds.

“Everybody looks at my fights and thinks I can be beat,” Mayweather explained. “Once you get inside the ring against me, it's different.”

Since a fight with David “Big Papi” Ortiz might be more plausible than a rematch with Victor, what's next for Mayweather? For the near future, nothing.

“Some guys are told when to fight,” he said, referring to you-know-who again. They have to do it on this date and on that date. One of the great things about working for myself is that I can take 16 months off if I want to and spend it with my family. Is that all right?”

Sure. It's also OK if he fights Pacquiao before both men are AARP-eligible.

“I've been around all these years,” Mayweather said. “Where was he in 1999, 2000, 2001? When I fought (Juan Manuel) Marquez, everybody said he was too old. Well, that's who he's fighting now (Nov. 12). See, I'm in a no-win situation.”

He won't win this Mayweather vs. Larry Merchant match he's drumming up either. He cursed the 80-year-old HBO analyst in the ring, to which Merchant replied, “If I was 50 years younger, I'd kick your ass.” Merchant also has no problem with drug testing.

But Mayweather isn't all venom and fangs. When he talked of his support group, led by lawyer Al Haymon, manager Leonard Ellerbe and trainer/uncle Roger Mayweather, he briefly came to tears.

He wants to be known as the face of boxing, in the manner of Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya and Mike Tyson were. What bothers him is this new Filipino face.

“I'm not ducking and dodging anybody,” Mayweather said. “But all I want is a level playing field.”

But first, his mouth needed stitches. Presumably he had to close it first.

Source: ocregister.com