{"id":610582,"date":"2026-04-16T11:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/610582\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:25:10","slug":"his-1bn-fortune-blown-floyd-mayweather-might-just-need-to-fight-again-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/610582\/","title":{"rendered":"His $1bn fortune blown, Floyd Mayweather might just need to fight again \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s almost a decade since Floyd Mayweather jnr filed a slew of trademark applications involving gaudy variations of his name combined with the word \u201cMoney\u201d. That flurry of braggadocious business came not long after he\u2019d earned $220m fighting Manny Pacquiao. It was about a year before he trousered even more again for the Conor McGregor debacle<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Nobody had ever wrung so much cash from the pay-per-view model or made the amassing of wealth such a crucial part of his identity than the ludicrous character ESPN once rightfully dubbed \u201cthe last great American prizefighter\u201d. He was that and a whole lot more.<\/p>\n

A supreme stylist in the ring, he won world titles in five weight classes across three different decades, piecing together a flawless resume of 49 victories, zero defeats and one lucrative cakewalk versus McGregor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fighting just about every legitimate contender in and around his size, he talked ridiculous levels of smack and turned conspicuous consumption into his personal brand. Owning a second private jet just for his retinue of bodyguards, he once flashed a journalist a bank receipt showing $123m resting in his savings account, a supposed flex that offered early clues to some serious defects in his monetary policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a man who wears his boxer shorts once before throwing them out,\u201d wrote Tim Keown on espn.com. \u201cThis is a man who wears his sneakers once before leaving them in hotel rooms for housekeepers who might have a relative in need of a size 7\u00bd, who keeps his head shaved yet travels on a private jet with his personal barber, who has two sets of nearly identical ultra luxury cars colour-coded by mansion to help him remember \u2013 white in Las Vegas, black in Miami \u2013 where he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the above may go some way to explaining why somebody who earned north of a billion dollars is currently being pursued by the taxman for $7.3 million (\u20ac6.2 million) and is rumoured to be heading for bankruptcy. A number of his commercial properties have been foreclosed on and a much boasted-about Manhattan real estate venture came to naught. He is facing a barrage of lawsuits from creditors, claiming money owed for everything from designer watches to unpaid rent to garbage collection. <\/p>\n

Not the profile expected of somebody who used to allow the great Warren Buffett watch him spar so the pair of them could talk about canny investment opportunities afterwards. <\/p>\n

\"FloydFloyd Mayweather is reported to have made $280m from his 2017 fight against Conor McGregor in Las Vegas. Mayweather won by TKO in the 10th round. Photograph: Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Then again, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway famously pays for his daily Breakfast McMuffin with loose change whereas members of Mayweather\u2019s entourage were specifically tasked with carrying around Ziploc bags full of crisp $100 bills to fund any impulse purchases. <\/p>\n

Essential readies for somebody who once dropped $50,000 on a diamond-encrusted iPod and had a member of staff whose full-time job was a dedicated car sanitiser. It all contributed towards a mid-career nickname change from Pretty Boy Floyd to Money Mayweather. The lavish lifestyle (there was a full-size candy store in his Vegas mansion) spawned reams of entertaining copy in and around the promotion of fights. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0$9m for 139 seconds: Floyd Mayweather eases past Tenshin NasukawaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He was perhaps forgiven the vulgar excess of his spendthrift ways because of the hardscrabble circumstances from which he\u2019d emerged, growing up in the maw of dire poverty in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Born to a crack-addicted mother and a street hustler father who also boxed, he knew too well what it was like for the electricity and water to be cut off at home. <\/p>\n

The grim details of his upbringing \u2013 an uncle nicknamed Baboon shot his father in the leg while Floyd jnr was a toddler sitting in his arms \u2013 made Mayweather\u2019s blingified schtick somehow tolerable in the eyes of many.<\/p>\n

\"FloydFloyd Mayweather throws a left at Manny Pacquiao during their welterweight unification world title bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas in 2015. Photograph: Al Bello\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

It helped, too, that he styled himself as the wised-up boxer who had learned from the costly pecuniary mistakes made by all those who had gone before. To avoid getting spectacularly ripped off like Mike <\/a>Tyson<\/a>, Muhammad Ali<\/a> and so many sorry predecessors, Mayweather established his own promotion company. It was a clever play that ensured he earned eight- and nine-figure sums for humdrum bouts where he often did just enough to win. By cutting out the middleman, he was never going to become another worn-out lonely palooka wondering where all the money and hangers-on had gone. At least that was the original narrative.<\/p>\n

Just like his hard-up predecessors, however, he\u2019s morphed into the saddest, most inevitable fistic cliche \u2013 a superannuated fighter nearing 50, supposedly climbing back through the ropes to fight Pacquiao and maybe even Tyson, desperately seeking Netflix<\/a> pay-days. <\/p>\n

\"ToTo some people, Floyd Mayweather’s in-your-face displays of wealth were acceptable because of his tough upbringing. Photograph: Mick Akers\/Las Vegas Review-Journal <\/p>\n

He\u2019s also embarked on a quest to find his \u201cmissing\u201d fortune, filing a lawsuit against Showtime TV, with whom he had partnered on so many of his most lucrative nights. He is seeking $340m and alleges the company kept money from him using \u201chidden accounts, unauthorised transactions and deliberate concealment of financial records\u201d. They counter that the charges have \u201cno factual merit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sympathy for Mayweather\u2019s downfall will be in short supply. Aside from most people long ago tiring of him obnoxiously flashing the cash, there\u2019s the matter of his utterly reprehensible character. With multiple accusations of violence against women, he served two months in prison for attacking his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris in front of their children. As news of his financial travails broke, 50 Cent took to Instagram to taunt his former friend turned sworn enemy. Reprising an old canard that the boxer is illiterate, the rapper wrote, \u201cBroke gotta box till ya drop champ … I told you, let me read the contracts, now lace up!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s almost a decade since Floyd Mayweather jnr filed a slew of trademark applications involving gaudy variations of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,4736,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-610582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-conor-mcgregor","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}