Floyd Mayweather Back in Gym, Sparking Conor McGregor Rematch Rumors

Floyd Mayweather Jr. posted a video from inside his gym to Instagram on Sunday which has led to rumors of a return to the ring

With no fight likely to earn him more than a rematch with UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor, some believe that Mayweather may be gearing up for just that.

Mayweather exhibited his snapping jab in the footage uploaded to his official Instagram account on Sunday:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbswperArKp

While it is unlikely that Mayweather will return, it is certainly not out of the question. Having made approximately $300 million dollars in his bout with “The Notorious” in August, it is conceivable that a rematch with McGregor could bring his earnings over two bouts to close to half of a billion dollars.

Former UFC title-contender and current Bellator heavyweight Chael Sonnen certainly believes that a second fight is on the cards between Mayweather & McGregor:

“I don’t think we’re going to see Conor back in that ring until Mayweather goes through his money, which is going to happen,” Sonnen claimed while discussing Oscar De La Hoya’s recent call out of McGregor.

“It will probably take a couple of years and we are likely to see a Conor-Mayweather 2 regardless of how many people are going to say ‘Chael, you’re wrong on that.’ “We’ll need two to three years to see if I’m right but Mayweather will be back so if Conor’s still hot at the time, Mayweather will still be hot. Comeback fights are huge. Mayweather will fight again, that part I’ll tell you for sure.”

McGregor seems in no rush to return to the UFC and has indicated that he is finding it ‘hard to get excited’ about the prospect of fighting for a fraction of the money he earned against Mayweather in a return to MMA:

“I came from a crazy event, a record-breaking event, the billion dollar fight it was labeled,” McGregor told the BBC earlier this month. “I made insane money. Then the opponents they’re trying to line up for me, an opponent [Tony Ferguson] with a $600,000 gate in Las Vegas.

“A $600,000 gate in Las Vegas is unheard of, it’s abysmal. So it’s hard to get excited about that. 100,000 pay-per-view buys compared to my 6.5 million pay-per-view buys.”

While the pay-per-view numbers are disputed, the fact that the fight was a monumental money-spinner is not. With McGregor’s apparent reluctance to defend his title and Dana White’s insistence that the UFC is ‘moving into boxing’, any sign of Mayweather even hinting at getting into the ring one more time will send rumors flying.

Oscar De La Hoya, Kermit Cintron and Jeff Horn‘s respective call outs of McGregor will not help in that regard, either. While Mayweather vs. McGregor 2 will obviously trump any other bout inside the squared circle in terms of revenue, many inside the boxing community appear to feel that the sport has not seen the last of the Irishman.

If there is something happening behind the scenes, the public is certainly not aware of it just yet. While a Mayweather vs. McGregor rematch does appear unlikely, it is arguably more probable than the initial bout between both men would have been to most.