Floyd Mayweather defends ‘joke’ Tenshin Nasukawa fight as bizarre rules revealed

FLOYD MAYWEATHER has responded to Amir Khan’s claim that his exhibition bout against Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa is ‘bad for boxing’.

Mayweather, 41, will meet Nasukawa, 20, on December 31 in a boxing exhibition – with Japanese MMA promotion RIZIN FF promoting the bout.

However, Khan, who has chased a fight with Mayweather since 2013, told the that he believes the 41-year-olds next bout is “hurting boxing.”

Khan said: “If you look at boxing and MMA – why is MMA and UFC surpassing boxing?

“Because they’re putting the better fights on, they’re putting the fights on that people want to see and these are just joke fights what Floyd Mayweather is doing.

“He’s going to be getting a good cheque but it’s hurting boxing isn’t it?

“Boxing fans are going to buy the fight, think it’s going to be a good fight, Mayweather is going to go in there and destroy the guy straight away (and) people will say it’s a mismatch.

“The guy [Nasukawa] kicks well but you’re not allowed to kick in this fight. If it was a kickboxing fight it would be different.

“Those that bought the fight are going to hate on it and (think) ‘why did we buy the fight?’

“But they’d be stupid to buy the fight – and then they’re all going to hate boxing and then when there is a good fight happening they’re not going to buy it because they think boxing is a joke.”

The Brit was heavily linked to a fight with the American in 2014, but Mayweather would instead fight Marcos Maidana with Khan fight Luis Collazo on the undercard.

Mayweather responded to Khan’s claims in a conference call to promote the Nasukawa fight – and the American urged fighters to ‘learn’ from him.

Mayweather said: “Everybody’s got something to say about Floyd Mayweather.

“Do what Floyd Mayweather did, accomplish what Floyd Mayweather accomplish, do record breaking things like Floyd Mayweather then you can say what you want to say.

“These guys are going out there fighting and getting two or three million, four million – three million, for fights for twelve rounds.

“We talking about sparring, I’m getting this for sparring, I make more than that just for sparring, that’s what I’m getting.

“We need to sit back and learn from Floyd Mayweather instead of try and knock Floyd Mayweather.”

The ruleset for Mayweather’s boxing exhibition have been released, as it was confirmed the fight will not go on their records.

The exhibition match will be based on the following rules and regulations:

• Three – three minute rounds.
• Boxing rules only.
• Both fighters will wear RIZIN 8 once groves.
• The weight limit is set to 147lbs.
• There will be no judges.
• It will be a full contact bout that will not go on either boxing or MMA records.

Nasukawa, a career bantamweight and featherweight fighter, will step up from 121lbs to fight Mayweather, who weighed in against Conor McGregor in his last fight at 149.4lbs.

Mayweather explained that he is competing in the exhibition to ‘entertain’ opposed to adding another win onto his 50-0 record.

He added: “This is another event, this is not a fight to me, a fight to me is 12 rounds, this is a chance to go out and entertain and give people what they want to see.

“It’s an exhibition bout, it’s not on my record, it’s not on his [Nasukawa] record, but it’s giving me a chance to do something different and compete against fighters from all walks of life, fighters from all around the world.

“I don’t have to train extremely hard or work extremely hard, this isn’t for no titles, this is not for 300 million it’s not for 100 million, so I’m going to go out there and have some fun and do what I do.

“I am making history because this is the most money ever made from an exhibition.”