Floyd Mayweather Reacts To RIZIN FF Signing

As the MMA world was nearly finished digesting Saturday’s UFC 230 from New York City last night, an odd bit of combat sports-related news broke. Japanese MMA promotion RIZIN FF announced that superstar boxer Floyd Mayweather would fight their kickboxing star Tenshin Nasukawa on December 31. Now it’s time Mayweather reacts to the news.

Mayweather will take on the also-undefeated Nasukawa in a fight the rules of which are still being ironed out. Nasukawa recently beat former UFC flyweight title contender Kyoji Horiguchi in a kickboxing war at RIZIN FF 13. He’s unbeaten at 27-0 in kickboxing. He also has a 4-0 record in MMA.

But his fight with Mayweather is not expected to be contested under MMA rules. Nasukawa should also be at a notable size disadvantage. The fight could be an exhibition-style bout consisting of three three-minute rounds. While it’s wholly thought Mayweather will not compete in anything but straight boxing, he claims he can ‘do it all.’

“Money” told Reuters (via The Daily Mail) before the announcement broke that his skills are growing:

‘I can wrestle, I can wrestle little bit. I can box a lot a bit. We will just see. I can do it all. I can do anything if I set my mind to it.’

Indeed we will see, but the odds are heavily on Mayweather not even sniffing anything close to a bout that involves grappling of any kind. Overall, the announcement of his RIZIN debut has been met with a large amount of criticism and doubt. He’s facing a 20-year-old fighter who is much smaller than he is. And both the rules and weight class are unknown.

Timing Is Everything

That doesn’t seem to matter to ‘Money,’ however, who’s certainly set to make a whole lot of just that for his latest ‘unretiring.’ Mayweather said this fight was simply all about timing and entertainment:

‘Everything is about timing, everything takes time and everything is about timing. It’s also all about entertainment. I love to entertain, I like for people to be entertained, and who doesn’t want to be entertained?

‘It is good to come over to another part of the world, have fun and enjoy each other.’

RIZIN clearly wants to entertain their fans with offbeat bookings for their traditional year-ending show on New Year’s Eve. They’ve certainly accomplished that this year, even if the booking is being met with questions.

Watch the preview video for the Mayweather’s odd debut here.