2024-08-24 03:01:00
An exhibition fight with a lot at stake – morbidity, above all – will be given by Floyd Mayweather, at 47 years old, and John Gotti III (32), grandson of a famous New York mafia boss, who already faced each other last year in an evening that ended in scandal.
The fight, scheduled for eight rounds of two minutes each, will start at 1 a.m. on Sunday (or late Saturday night) at the Mexico City Arena, marking the first time in this country for Mayweather, a former world champion in five different divisions and retired with an undefeated record of 50 professional fights.
Since his retirement in 2017, the charismatic American boxer has remained active with exhibition fights in different parts of the world to keep his pockets well fed, challenging rivals with experience in mixed martial arts and also social media figures.
The duel against Gotti will be a rematch of the exhibition clash they had in June 2023 in Florida. That time the referee stopped the fight in the sixth round, before the eight scheduled rounds had been completed, because both fighters spent the entire fight waging a verbal war that was difficult to control.
Despite the fight being stopped, Gotti went after Mayweather, causing both corners to empty and the teams on both sides to engage in a pitched battle that included some fans and even continued outside the stadium.
At Wednesday’s pre-fight press conference, Gotti, a former mixed martial artist with a two-no-loss record as a professional boxer, made it clear he holds no grudges and even thanked Mayweather for honoring his word to give him a rematch and help him pay his bills.