adminCape Town – Floyd Mayweather jnr knows his audience, there’s no doubt. Boxing’s superstar arrived in South Africa on Wednesday wearing a T-shirt with a bright yellow map of Africa on the front. Below it, his TMT logo – that stands for The Money Team – was in the colours of the South African flag.
Mayweather told South African fans he had arrived in the “motherland.” He even said he might fight here one day.
“Money” Mayweather swooped into Johannesburg for the start of a four-city visit to South Africa and first trip to the African continent, and was hustled by security straight through a packed airport terminal and into a Rolls Royce. He sped off with no more than a few words, delivered on the run, to hundreds who had gathered to greet him.
It didn’t seem to disappoint any of them. Later, Mayweather was more generous with his time, speaking to reporters for around an hour about his future fight plans and this trip. Well, part of the audience was reporters.
Many of those fans had also somehow infiltrated the news conference, beefy security and all, meaning there were fewer questions and more statements of Mayweather’s general greatness.
James Dalton, a former South African rugby international, stood up and thanked “Mr Mayweather” for making the trip and honouring South Africa. Rugby players are a big deal in South Africa, but Mayweather apparently is bigger. The biggest thing in boxing.
No surprise that Mayweather earned a guaranteed $41.5 million in his last bout, a dominating majority decision over Canelo Alvarez that was the richest fight in the world and made around $150 million on TV sales alone.
And with those kinds of figures, the 36-year-old five-division world champion is in no rush to give in to Manny Pacquiao’s pleas for a fight, he said.
Mayweather also suggested Pacquiao’s renewed desire to make their mega fight happen came out of desperation after the Filipino’s back-to-back losses to Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012, and his tax problems.- Sport24.
Online Reporter