ESPN Predicts 50 Cent Will Become Floyd Mayweather’s Full-Time Promoter
Posted by By Admin at 27 July, at 11 : 28 AM Print
Boxing fans know rapper 50 Cent — real name Curtis Jackson — as Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s best buddy. He has been at Mayweather’s side during episodes of HBO’s “24/7” and is a regular at Mayweather’s fights and news conferences.
But now, it seems, he is also poised to become Mayweather’s promoter when Mayweather is released from jail following a domestic abuse conviction. The pound-for-pound king entered the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas on June 1 for an 87-day sentence, but is due to be released Aug. 3 for good behavior.
Although Mayweather has worked with Golden Boy Promotions on a fight-by-fight basis for all six of his bouts since 2007, they do not have a long-term agreement.
50 Cent recently received a promoter’s license from the New York State Athletic Commission for his company TMT Promotions. That stands for “The Money Team,” which is what Mayweather, the highest paid athlete in the world last year ($85 million), according to Forbes magazine, calls his crew.
On Wednesday night, 50 Cent and Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya — whom Mayweather defeated in his first fight with Golden Boy in their record-shattering pay-per-view fight — mixed it up on Twitter with 50 Cent including in their exchange, “I don’t gamble, Floyd do, but I bet you (that) you won’t be promoting Floyd Mayweather no more. TMT PROMOTIONS.”
They sent several messages to each other, including the one that seemed to set off the back-and-forth when De La Hoya wrote, “Everyone wanting to be a boxing promoter? Good luck. Easier said than done.”
50 Cent responded to De La Hoya with a few messages, although both had deleted the tweets from their spat by Thursday morning.
Mayweather, a welterweight champion, moved up in weight and claimed a junior middleweight title for the second time when he outpointed Miguel Cotto on May 5 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in a fight that sold a whopping 1.5 million pay-per-view units. During the lead-up to the fight, Mayweather said he planned to fight again following his jail sentence and before the end of the year.
Two other free-agent fighters on the verge of signing with TMT Promotions are former featherweight titleholder Yuriorkis Gamboa, a 2004 Cuban Olympic gold medalist who is tight with Mayweather, and super middleweight contender Andre Dirrell, a 2004 U.S. Olympic bronze medalist and Super Six World Boxing Classic participant.
Golden Boy chief executive Richard Schaefer could not be reached for comment, nor could Leonard Ellerbe, one of Mayweather’s advisers and the CEO of Mayweather’s own promotional company, Mayweather Promotions.
