Showtime boss says Floyd Mayweather is ‘deadly serious’ about Pacquio rematch

Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently announced that he is coming out of “retirement” once again for a rematch against Manny Pacquiao, and there is plenty of skepticism over whether the fight will actually happen. That was to be expected, but someone who knows Floyd quite well insists the undefeated champion is not messing around.

Stephen Espinoza, president of programming for Showtime Sports, told TMZ over the weekend that Mayweather is “deadly serious” about fighting Pacquiao again.

“I haven’t spoken to Floyd,” Espinoza admitted. “I know he is deadly serious about it. He is very, very serious about wanting to fight from everything that I’ve seen and heard. Manny Pacquiao is serious about it as well.”

Espinoza said it would be difficult to work out all of the details of the fight before the end of 2018, but he believes the rematch will take place at some point in the near future. He added that he understands why there was skepticism about whether Mayweather was serious because of the way he announced he is planning to fight Pacquiao, but that is simply Floyd’s marketing style.

There had been talk about Mayweather only doing promoting work for Pacquiao’s next fight, but as of now it sounds like he wants a rematch. When you can make the kind of money that Mayweather and Pacquiao would make from fighting again, it’s hard to turn it down.