- When Floyd Mayweather was preparing to end his brief retirement last year and asked adviser Al Haymon to field offers for fights, Mayweather did a little fielding of his own.
He spent several days in South Florida hanging at promoter Don King's mansion.
King was not shy about his interest in signing Mayweather, but even though they barbecued and relaxed, nothing came of it.
Mayweather returned to Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions, which eventually put on his comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last fall, followed by his win against Shane Mosley in May.
Now the High-Haired One's courtship /pursuit/seduction of Mayweather is in high gear again. They spent several days together again last week in South Florida, feasting on lobster and making no secret about their dance.
King still hopes to sign Mayweather and believes if he does, fight fans will get what they want -- the mother of all fights between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
King expects Mayweather ringside as his guest Saturday night at the Scottrade Center to watch junior welterweight titlist Devon Alexander -- the fighter with the most Mayweather-like potential in the sport -- defend against former titlist Andreas Kotelnik. If Mayweather shows up, HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg told me the network will endeavor to interview him during the telecast.
While King, who turns 79 this month, has been all over St. Louis promoting his rear end off, Mayweather has also been on his mind.
With so much swirling about their positional pairing, I sat down with King at our hotel Friday to talk about it.
At one point, King's phone rang. He said it was Mayweather, spoke to him for a couple of minutes and told me he said he was in town and would be at the fight. Then King turned his attention back to our discussion.
"I love Floyd. Floyd's my man," said King, who was holding his cadre of flags and smiling ear to ear. "He'll get the soup to nuts treatment [if he signs]. He was down there with me for a week in Florida. He's buyin' him a nice place down there. And so it's no downside with me with Floyd because the people that have him, they gonna give him more money to keep him away from me if he stays with them. If he comes with me, he'll have a whole new vista, a whole new arena that he can play on. I can get more money than anyone out there. They can't stop that."
King said he when he tried wooing him last year, Mayweather ultimately went back to Haymon and Golden Boy because they gave him more money.
"He profited from me. He got more money for the Marquez fight," King said. "He wouldn't have got what he had. He can use me. I don't mind being used because I understand Golden Boy, Al Haymon."
King's point of view is that Haymon and Golden Boy do not understand Mayweather or know how to treat him.
King said he'd make Mayweather "a people's champion and be able to create and generate more money than he's ever had before with dignity, pride and stature. Like it is now, he's being degraded, vilified, accusations, you know. Some of it goes for the hype, but when it gets to the substance of the man, the substance is not there. And they don't understand because they can't communicate with him because Floyd speaks Ghetto-ese and they don't understand because it's hieroglyphics.
"They look down on him and put him in disrepute and disregard, the people who's with him. And they don't defend him. He goes out and says, 'Money, money, money,' and that don't win it. That don't give you what you need as a human being."
King said his pursuit is not a hard one as he has done with so many fighters in the past. He said he hasn't presented him with a duffel bag of money -- one of King's favorite moves -- to get him to sign. He didn't jet off to be at Mayweather's side. No, King is playing it cooler than that.
"Never made him an offer. If he wants me, he come and get me. I'm there for him all the time, either way," King said. "It doesn't matter whether he comes or he don't come. I love him, I understand him because I'm one of him. I am one of the masses, not the classes. I'm from the hood too and I also speak Ghetto-ese. I can relate, communicate and identify. And that's something [Haymon and Golden Boy] don't do."
King insisted that if he and Mayweather were together, the Pacquiao fight would be made quickly. Sure, he said he and Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum -- King's longtime adversary -- would argue and fight like crazy over deal points, but it would be made quickly because they are dealmakers.
"Me and Bob would get that fight done in two shakes of a lamb's tail," King said. "If I was there working with Bob Arum, this fight would have been history. It'd be ready now and we'd be talking about how we gonna promote. It wouldn't be nothing put a piece of cake. But even then it would be so much bigger that what it would be if he were to make with Golden Boy or Al. They cannot make the fight as big as Arum and I can make it. They are not in the class of a Bob Arum."
Indeed a co-promotion between the sport's most famous (some would say notorious) promoters would add another dimension to what is already the biggest potential fight in the sport. After years of promotional warfare, King and Arum, both in their late 70s, have mellowed toward each other. Fight they will for every dime, but they respect each other.
King once told me that he was glad to have Arum around as his competition because if he didn't have Arum, "I wouldn't know how good I really was."
King wants to see Pacquiao and Mayweather fight but said if or when they do, he wants to see it be the "biggest fight in the universe."
Naturally, that means co-promoting it with Arum, Mayweather's former promoter, who has openly said he's rooting for King to sign Mayweather so they can make the fight.
"This will be a good fight, and I think Bob Arum and I would make it the biggest fight in the universe," King said. "No matter who makes it, it will be the biggest fight in the world. Without me and without Bob [doing it together], it would be a good fight, Pacquiao and Mayweather, but it would not carry the same impetus."
King threw around the number $200 million as to what he thinks it could generate.
"You can generate that kind of revenue when you have the creative imagination that I have," he said.
So the King-Mayweather dalliance presumably will continue through this weekend, at least. I would never count King out.
"Floyd keeps telling me he's free," King said. "I keep hearing from Golden Boy and other people that he ain't free. So who knows? They may have done tricked him and he thinks he's free. They promise you everything and give you nothing and he finds himself in a quagmire. That's what happened to him last time.
"So now he's back saying he got it straightened out, and 'me and you gonna talk; me and you gonna do this and that.' I say, 'OK, OK.' I never ever disagree because he's the man. So whatever he says, that's what it is. But I would be delighted. It would be an honor and privilege for me to be with Mayweather.
"He has done a tremendous job of self-promotion. He's done a tremendous job of fighting and winning. I love Floyd."
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