Silverman: Mayweather Is Fooling Nobody With His Retirement Talk

By Steve Silverman
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No one believes Floyd Mayweather Jr. when it comes to his retirement. Not even his father.

Floyd says that when he steps into the ring Saturday night against Andre Berto in Las Vegas, it will be the last professional fight of his career. All he wants to do is beat Berto so he can finish his career with a 49-0 record and put himself on the same pedestal with Rocky Marciano, the "Brockton Blockbuster."

Fighters tend to retire and then come back. Usually out of boredom, but sometimes for a nobler purpose. A fighter wants to show the world that he is still a star and still capable of flashing his talent.

Floyd's father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., has suggested that his 38-year-old son will come back after he retires, just like so many others. But his son would not be coming back out of nobility or anything close. Floyd Jr. simply has very little else to do other than make sports bets of nauseating proportions at the Vegas casinos he loves to frequent.

According to Floyd, he wins most of those big bets he makes. But even Mayweather has to know that's no way to live your life. Even with all the money he has earned, he is not going to be able to run away from the edge the house has. Nobody wins over the long haul, and if Floyd thinks he can, he is going to have a rude awakening.

Floyd has a lot of money, so I'm not saying he is going to go broke, but he is going to learn some hard lessons.

He's probably a lot better off staying in the ring, although boxing fans will be better off with him leaving. When he fights Saturday night against Berto, Mayweather is not going to try to put on a show or make it memorable for the sport and its fans.

That's not how Mayweather has gone about his business, especially lately. He will do whatever it takes to win, but he is not a gifted showman. He probably could be and he definitely should be for the obscene amount of money he has earned throughout his career, but he is more interested in getting out clean.

Marciano, the man he is trying to equal, never thought about fighting to protect his record. He tried to knock out every opponent and if he took hard punches from a star like Archie Moore, he didn't mind. He knew he was there to put on a show, and all the great fighters since have known the same thing.

Muhammad Ali was not protecting his reputation when he fought his trilogy against Joe Frazier or when he took on George Foreman in Zaire. He put his reputation on the line every time he stepped into the ring.

Mike Tyson was a lot of things, but he never waltzed through his fights like Mayweather.

In his most recent fight against Manny Pacquiao, Mayweather was in position to let his hands go and put on a tremendous show. Pacquiao wanted to fight, but Floyd wanted to cover up and pile on the points.

The fact that he was able to do so against Pacquiao and fighters like Canelo Alvarez speaks to Mayweather's huge talent. But the fact that he rarely left it all in the ring shows the contempt he had for the people who pay the freight in the sport of boxing.

He has rarely given his all to his sport and he has behaved recklessly and lawlessly outside of the ring. He has been convicted of domestic abuse three times and spent time in prison.

He is not an athlete to be admired.

He should be reviled for the way he has conducted himself outside of the ring, and while he has a ton of talent, he has only rarely let all of his talent show, and that means he has cheated his sport.

The guess here is that Floyd closes out with another blah decision, and that he finds nothing to do with himself afterwards. After two or three years, Floyd's father will be proven correct when an older and thicker Mayweather returns to the ring.

It will not be pretty then, and it's not pretty now.

Follow Steve on Twitter at @ProFootballBoy