Floyd Mayweather to fight Sept. 13

ByDan Rafael ESPN logo
Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Barely two weeks since Floyd Mayweather Jr. outpointed Marcos Maidana to unify welterweight world titles, the pound-for-pound king has set his next fight date.

Mayweather will fight an opponent to be determined on Sept. 13, Mayweather Promotions chief executive Leonard Ellerbe told ESPN.com on Monday night.

"Floyd will go on Sept. 13 and we looking at who he's going to fight and where he is going to fight," Ellerbe said. "Obviously, Las Vegas is his home and the MGM Grand is always the leading candidate but we will take a look at our other options."

The Showtime pay-per-view fight will be the fourth of a six-bout deal worth around $200 million that Mayweather (46-0, 26 KOs) signed with Showtime/CBS in early 2013.

Although Mayweather defeated Maidana by majority decision in one of the toughest fights of his career on May 3 at the MGM Grand - where he has fought nine times in a row -- he gave strong consideration to accepting an offer to fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Ellerbe said that Mayweather would again consider fighting in New York for the first time in his career this fall.

"[Barclays Center chief executive] Brett [Yormark] and those guys at the Barclays Center made a tremendous offer for the Maidana fight and I'm sure they'll be looking to be in the Floyd Mayweather business again come September, but the MGM is Floyd's home and they are always the leading candidate," Ellerbe said.

Ellerbe said they have not yet determined Mayweather's Sept. 13 opponent.

"We're looking at opponents now," he said. "In the next two weeks we'll have that part figured out."

There was a lot of postfight discussion about a Mayweather-Maidana rematch because of how competitive and entertaining the fight was. Mayweather said immediately afterward that he would consider fighting the Argentine brawler again and Maidana, of course, said he would like another crack at him.

"He's definitely in the mix," Ellerbe said. "He's a very dirty fighter. He used a lot of dirty tactics, but Floyd handled him easily and he gave the fans a great fight. But there's a long list of opponents. Everybody wants to be in the Floyd Mayweather sweepstakes. Several guys have made it clear they want to be next."

One of them is former unified junior welterweight titlist Amir Khan of England, who looked sharp in a lopsided decision win against former welterweight titlist Luis Collazo on the Mayweather-Maidana undercard.

However, Khan essentially removed himself from consideration for the September fight because of religious reasons. Ellerbe said Mayweather has no intention of moving to a more accommodating date for Khan.

"If Amir Khan wants to flight Floyd Mayweather, we're going to fight on Sept. 13," Ellerbe said.

The other candidates likely would come from the deep pool of fighters in the Golden Boy Promotions stable, including junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia, welterweight titlist Shawn Porter and interim titlist Keith Thurman.

The pay-per-view figures for Mayweather-Maidana have not been reported yet, but Ellerbe said they will be soon.

"When we have the information together to put out an accurate number we will do so," he said.

Various industry sources have said the fight did not reach 1 million buys and some say it sold considerably less. Ellerbe said he does not know what the fight generated yet.

"We're still going through our accounting. In this day and age accounting takes a little longer because the pay-per-view universe is different than it was just a few years ago," he said. "In order to get an accurate number it takes a little longer. When we put out the number we want to put out the right number."

The Nevada State Athletic Commission on Monday said that the fight generated a live gate of $15,024,400 - fourth-best in Nevada history -- from 15,718 tickets sold. There were 248 unsold tickets and 50 complimentary tickets.

The commission also said that the drug tests for all of the boxers on the card came back negative.

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