Are Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao building toward a rematch?

Manny Pacquiao proved he is still capable of holding his own in the ring when he defeated Keith Thurman over the weekend, and that has resulted in a lot of talk about a potential rematch between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. With the way the two fighters have been going back and forth on social media, it’s fair to wonder if they are open to it.

In a lengthy post on Instagram Tuesday, Mayweather criticized people for bringing up his name every time something happens with Pacquiao. He said Pacquiao’s “entire legacy and career has been built off its association with my name” and that it is time for people to stop using his name as “clickbait” for Pac-Man.

Not surprisingly, Pacquiao disagrees. He fired back at Mayweather on social media, pointing out that Floyd attended his fight against Thurman and essentially saying he should give him a rematch if he’s so desperate to be relevant again.

Mayweather had a response for that, of course. He took to Instagram again and said he only attended the fight because Pacquiao is his “employee” and he had to supervise. He also mocked Pac-Man for making the same amount of money against Thurman that Mayweather made recently for a meaningless exhibition fight.

Whether you like Mayweather or not, there’s no debating he is an excellent promoter. Most of what he does is calculated, so it’s certainly possible he could be trying to gauge how much interest there is in a potential Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch. There have been strong hints for quite some time that a rematch could be coming, and there’s no question is would result in an astronomical payday for both fighters. That is something that might be tough for Floyd to turn down.