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Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t be fighting in RIZIN FF on New Year’s Eve against Japanese kickboxing prodigy Tenshin Nakusawa after all. On Monday, November 5, a press conference was held in Tokyo, Japan to announce Mayweather vs. Tenshin would take place on December 31 at Super Saitama Arena as part of RIZIN 14. The New Year’s Eve shows are often the biggest for Japanese promotions, so announcing a fight that was a pure spectacle did not seem out of the ordinary.
However, it looks like Mayweather may have been duped.
On Wednesday, November 7, Mayweather took to social media to issue a lengthy statement saying that he was “completely blindsided” at the press conference and that he never signed a contract.
On top of that, Mayweather says the arrangements with a bout against Tenshin were made without his consent.
“First and foremost, I want it to be clear that I, Floyd Mayweather, never agreed to an official bout with Tenshin Nasukawa. In fact (with all due respect) I have never heard of him until this recent trip to Japan. Ultimately, I was asked to participate in a 9 minute exhibition of 3 rounds with an opponent selected by the RIZIN Fighting Federation,” Mayweather wrote.
“What I was originally informed of by Brent Johnson of One Entertainment was that this was to be an exhibition put on for a small group of wealthy spectators for a very large fee. This exhibition was previously arranged as a Special Bout purely for entertainment purposes with no intentions of being represented as an official fight card nor televised worldwide. Once I arrived to the press conference, my team and I were completely derailed by the new direction this event was going and we should have put a stop to it immediately. I want to sincerely apologize to my fans for the very misleading information that was announced during this press conference and I can assure you that I too was completely blindsided by the arrangements that were being made without my consent nor approval.”
Was this all really just a misunderstanding or was it a publicity stunt to get Mayweather’s name back in the headlines? Or who knows, maybe Floyd went home and saw highlights of Tenshin and realized he may have made a terrible mistake. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
