FLOYD MAYWEATHER marks his return to the ring in the most extraordinary fashion by facing YouTube sensation Logan Paul.
The 50-0 boxing legend, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame one week after fighting Paul, will lace up the gloves once more on Sunday night.
In a career which boats wins over Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Canelo Alvarez and several others, he will somehow wind up sharing the ring with a man who spent £1.4MILLION on Pokemon cards.
This time it is not about defending belts, legacy or his unbeaten record, it is purely a means to entertain and ultimately cash in.
Mayweather, 44, and Paul, 26, have both played their part in building the pay-per-view spectacle, which most buyers will shell out for already knowing the result.
But the intrigue is undeniable for some, and the whole reason Fanmio put the wheels in motion for the unthinkable fight in the first place.
BETTING SPECIAL – GET MAYWEATHER AT 20/1 OR PAUL AT 120/1
The website, which offers fans the chance to receive personal messages from their heroes, had a pre-existing relationship with Mayweather.
That led to talks about bringing the American great back between the ropes for another exhibition.
Around the same time, Fanmio had started a relationship with Paul, who has boxed only TWICE before.
And before long, Fanmio founder and CEO Solomon Engel put plans in place to present Mayweather with his most daring PPV of all time.
MAYWEATHER VS LOGAN PAUL: Where will the fight take place, what TV channel and live stream will it be on?
Engel told SunSport: “Floyd and I were talking about doing something, some sort of exhibition and just having conversations.
“Once I got conversations with Logan, one thing led to another. It was a lot of work for me and my team.
“It was a long lasting relationship with Floyd, a lot of work to convince Floyd and show him this was a great opportunity.
“We worked on that for a while and finally after a lot of time and back and forth we were able to make it happen.”
Mayweather hung the gloves up as a professional after beating ex-UFC champion Conor McGregor, 32, in ten rounds in 2017.
But he made a brief cameo in Japan a year later, wiping out featherweight kickboxing star Tenshin Nasukawa in a similar spectacle to Sunday’s headliner.
Paul meanwhile, is winless having drawn against rival KSI in a white collar bout in 2018 before losing their rematch a year later as they turned pro.
Still, with over 25.5m social media followers and 23m YouTube subscribers, the internet phenomenon remains a hot commodity in the boxing business.
And when two worlds collide in the form of boxing’s most lucrative fighter ever against an online superstar, it leaves promoters predicting only massive success.
Engel said: “We knew that this was a huge opportunity.
“We knew it was the No1 pay-per-view fighter in history going up against one of the biggest YouTubers with a massive audience.
“From the beginning we thought that it would make for a really interesting event from a numbers standpoint.
“Secondly we thought it was interesting as we know Floyd is one of the greatest boxers to ever live but he’s going up against somebody who is much heavier, much younger, much taller than him.
“A lot of advantages Logan has. Of course, Floyd has his advantages but I think the mystery of that size difference we thought was really interesting as well.
“We didn’t know what the outcome would be, but from the start we always thought it would be a really entertaining event if we could put it together and we were able to do that.”
With Mayweather prioritising a paycheque rather than reputation, he recently admitted fighting 0-1 Logan was a ‘legalised bank robbery’.
And a huge part to play in the box office numbers will be Paul’s adoring fan base and followers – something Mayweather was initially not familiar with.
Engel revealed: “It wasn’t hard to convince him, it was more he didn’t know much about Logan so it was more having him understand how big Logan’s audience is.
“Once he understood that, and made the money right for him, it started to come together real quick.”
