Fans of Floyd Mayweather Jr. can watch the undefeated boxer and world’s highest-paid athlete live online Wednesday as he trains for his final fight — or what he currently claims will be his final fight, anyway — coming up September 12 against unheralded opponent Andre Berto. Mayweather will conduct a workout at his own Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas, a workout open to the media and even some fans.
Watch the Floyd Mayweather Jr. open workout live online right here on the Inquisitr by returning to this page at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, 3 p.m. Pacific. SHO Sports, a division of the Showtime premium cable network, will stream the workout live at that time.
Mayweather sent waves of disappointment and even disgust through the boxing world in July when he announced that he had picked the 31-year-old Berto — widely looked on as a once-promising has-been in boxing circles — as his opponent for his supposed swan song bout.
While there is plenty of skepticism among fight fans that Mayweather — who has “retired” on several occasions before — will actually hang up his gloves for real after the Berto fight, one thing is certain: The fight will indeed be the final one on Mayweather’s six-fight exclusive contract with Showtime, which has held the extremely lucrative rights to his last five fights.
Mayweather, who had previously fought all of his pay-per-view fights under the HBO Sports banner, began his Showtime commitment against an overmatched opponent , the spirited but grossly outclassed Robert Guerrero, on May 4, 2013. In the interim, he fought rising Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, two fights against Argentine slugger Marcos Maidana, and his May 2 megafight this year against Manny Pacquiao — of course, winning them all.
He now ends the contract with another outclassed opponent in Berto — who fought Robert Guerrero in 2012 and lost. Berto, in 2011, also fought another opponent who would go on to be easily defeated by Mayweather, Victor Ortiz.
Berto lost to Ortiz as well.
Understandably, the Mayweather vs. Berto fight is not drawing nearly the interest that Mayweather’s fight against Pacquiao drew, with ticket prices on the secondary — that is, resale — market not only falling well short of the prices for the Pacquiao fight but not equalling the prices for his 2013 fight against Alvarez.
Until he pulled in about $220 million from the Pacquiao fight, the Alvarez bout had been the most lucrative of his career, with a $75 million haul.
In addition to the video at the top of this page, the Floyd Mayweather open workout is available to watch live online on the SHO Sports YouTube page at this link , as well as via ESPN3, the online-only service of ESPN, at this link .
[Image: SHO Sports Publicity Image]