Last weekend, a new superstar of boxing became recognised as the best fighter on the planet. Almost instantly, fans have begun to ask questions as to whether Terence Crawford could have been the man to topple the legendary Floyd Mayweather, and they may yet get an answer.
Crawford knocked out long-term rival, Errol Spence Jr, in the ninth-round of their hotly-anticipated undisputed welterweight title clash to claim all four belts in the division.
In the following days, there has been plenty of debate online as to whether ‘Bud’ would have defeated Floyd Mayweather and put an end to his 50-0 run, but the discussions were disregarded as fantasy fight hypotheticals and not realistic due to ‘The Best Ever’ retiring six years ago and now being 46-years-old.
However, in an interview with ESNEWS, Calvin Ford, trainer of Gervonta Davis, recalled that Mayweather once stated he would come out of retirement if Crawford defeated Spence.
“The question is, is Floyd going to come out of retirement and fight Crawford? I remember a statement where he said that if Terence beat Spence, then he would come out of retirement.”
“That’s a good one because you’ve got the old great against the new great. The pay-per-views would be stupid!”
To add further fuel to the fire, two-division world champion, Carl Frampton, predicted that a prime Terence Crawford would defeat a prime Floyd Mayweather in a welterweight contest during the live pay-per-view broadcast of Spence-Crawford on TNT Sports.
Whilst the rumours are just that at this point, Mayweather has been staying active, fighting in seven exhibition bouts since hanging up the gloves, four of which were in the last twelve months.
There will all be speculation as to whether the five-division world champion could cope with ‘Bud’, but would he really want to risk a 50-0 record at this point in his career? Maybe, if the ‘Money’ is right.