Floyd Mayweather Jr. must be realizing that the number of fights left for him that people actually want to see at this point in his career are few and far between. Today the soon-to-be-incarcerated WBC, WBA, IBF and The Ring welterweight champion has agreed in principle to face Manny Pacquiao May 5 in Las Vegas.

“Money” took to his Twitter and Facebook accounts this afternoon to call out the WBO and WBC welterweight champ. Pacman’s camp has yet to respond to the challenge, but his promoter Bob Arum is said to be in the Philippines negotiating Manny’s next fight.

(You know who’s lucky I don’t have a time machine? Those damn kids with their skateboards on my sidewalks!) 

When he’s not harassing fighters inside the ring or making up false claims about MMA promotions paying him 5 million dollars to attend an event, I’d like to imagine that Larry Merchant is playing Parcheesi in Boca Vista somewhere, just enjoying the fact that time travel doesn’t exist so he wouldn’t have to follow through on some of his outrageous claims. Well, I would be wrong in that assessment, because it turns out Merchant is far too busy talking out his ass at every possible opportunity to even have time for table based games of mental aptitude. In a recent interview with Boxing Scene, Merchant responded to Dana White’s claims that he was “senile” and “an embarrassment to HBO” with the following statement, which I can only assume took a fortnight to spit out:

(Props: gsemajt)

Floyd Mayweather upped his perfect boxing record to 42-0 last night with a fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz, a win that earned him the WBC Welterweight World Title — but it wouldn’t be Money May without a little controversy.

Mayweather controlled the majority of the first three rounds with his trademark speed, outlanding his younger opponent. The fourth frame was a back-and-forth slugfest, opening with a furious assault by Floyd. But Ortiz turned the tables and battered Mayweather against the ropes in the final minute. Unfortunately, the 24-year-old let his emotions get the better of him.

As you can see in the video above, Ortiz blatantly head-butts Mayweather with 14 seconds left in the round. The referee spots the foul and immediately separates the fighters. By way of apology, Ortiz walks over to Mayweather to give him a hug and kiss. That’s strike one.

(…so Tiny choked his ass…I know. Can you believe he had the nerve to ask ME for ID?)

On the heels of his latest criminal charges — a pair of misdemeanor harassment counts filed against him last week in Las Vegas, NV,  Floyd Mayweather Jr. is at the center of new lawsuit.

The suit, filed by a Las Vegas strip club bouncer, alleges that one of the boxing champ’s bodyguards choked the complainant outside of his place of work, Drai’s at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon after he asked Mayweather and his entourage for identification before they were allowed entry into the club. According to court documents obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the plaintiff, Clay Gerling is seeking $10,000 in damages.

If you missed Manny Pacquiao‘s latest performance on Saturday night, well, you didn’t miss much. The boxing megastar defended his WBO welterweight title by unanimous decision against “Sugar” Shane Mosley, in a bout that was marked by a disappointing lack of action. It’s not suprising that this CBS Sports highlight reel starts at the end of the 10th round. The only notable moments before that were a knockdown that Pacquiao scored in the 3rd frame — which seemed to convince Mosley to quit engaging altogether — and a trip/shove by Mosley earlier in the tenth that the referee decided to rule a knockdown, just to keep things interesting. Nevertheless, two of the judges ignored the ref’s bad call and gave every round to Pacquiao.

As we told y’all on Friday, the Pacquaio/Mosley match was Gus Johnson’s final play-by-play gig for Showtime, and he made sure to trot out his diverse range of knowledge. At the 0:52 mark: “He kinda throws, in the MMA world, it’s a version of the ‘Superman’ punch.” GuJo‘s just keeping the chops sharp until the UFC comes calling, I guess.

After every mechanical victory by Pacquiao over an outmatched opponent, our thoughts always turn to Floyd Mayweather Jr., and what he might be up to right now. Well, get a load of this…

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Who’s watching tonight? Got any specific predictions? Check back here for all the latest MMA news!

Previously: Floyd Mayweather Jr. Expertly Brings Race Into the Boxing vs. MMA Debate

(Alexander Shlemenko‘s last appearance, a 40-second stoppage via knees to the body against Sean Salmon, at Fight Festival 27 last month in Finland.)

Who needs a frantically thrown-together arena in Abu Dhabi? Bellator is hosting its own outdoor event this Thursday at the Power & Light District in Kansas City, Missouri, featuring the quarterfinals of their middleweight tournament. Sure, there really aren’t any big names on the card, but it’s Bellator, so you know there will be at least one insane finish on YouTube by Friday morning. Here’s how the middleweight tourney is arranged:

Bryan Baker vs. Sean Loeffler
Ryan McGivern vs. Jared Hess
Alexander Shlemenko vs. Matt Major
Eric Schambari vs. Luke Zachrich

Go to fightpicker.cagepotato.com right now to make your picks for the tournament fights as well as the "Local Feature Fight Card," which includes recently-ousted featherweight GP competitor Eric Marriott, former Strikeforce Challengers headliner Rudy Bears, and Drew Dober. Note: Due to some recent changes to the Bellator XVI lineup, we had to make a few edits to the questions this afternoon. So if you already entered a pool, please go back and double-check your picks.

And just for fun, we’ve included two questions about Saturday night’s welterweight boxing championship match between Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley. For inspiration, the first episode of HBO’s Mayweather vs. Mosley 24/7 is after the jump…

(Apologies for the pop-up. Video courtesy of MMALinker.)

Floyd Mayweather defeated Juan Manuel Marquez last night in a one-sided unanimous decision that saw Money control every round and score a knockdown in the second frame. Mayweather landed 290 of 493 (59%) of his punches, compared to Marquez’s 69 of 583 (12%). At UFC 103 in Dallas, Dana White had the boxing match playing on a monitor near him. His verdict? "It sucked. It sucked just like I said it would and knew it would."

(Floyd knew he should have thrown paper.)

Update: These quotes are fake, apparently. Sorry, guys.

(Props: youtube.com/UFC)

"What made Floyd Mayweather a pay-per-view star was Oscar De La Hoya. I know Floyd can’t sell tickets without Oscar but what’s happening here is, boxing is doing it to you again. They’re giving you the fight that you don’t want. Nobody asked for this fight with, ah, with Mayweather and, ah, what’s his name? What’s his name? Nobody even knows, nobody in this room even knows who Floyd’s fighting! I should know, I’m a big boxing guy and I respect the guy that he’s fighting, I know his name but I can’t think of it right now. But that’s my point, nobody gives a shit! Boxing is trying to sell you the fight that nobody cares about. People wanna see Mayweather/Pacquiao. But they’re not giving you that fight…

You show up to see Floyd Mayweather not fight. This guy will run around in circles. Everybody wants to know why the UFC is becoming so popular? It’s because they’re sick of boxers not fighting…basically you get to see ‘Dancing With the Stars’ again with Floyd Mayweather, except you have to pay for it this time…On that same night, on that UFC card, you guys can all tune in and you can watch not one fight, you guys can watch five great fights that night, for ten dollars less than what Floyd wants you to pay to see him run around in circles and lay on the ropes and move around and not fight."

Dana White may have muzzled his video blogs, but he won’t hesitate to lay down some verbal bitchsmack recorded against a green-screen when the situation calls for it. And Floyd Mayweather’s anti-MMA rhetoric has clearly gotten under his skin. Dana may have a point about Mayweather not setting up the matchup that fans want to see, but he should be careful about banging that drum too hard. After all, which fight did MMA fans ask for: Lesnar vs. Carwin or Lesnar vs. Fedor? When did we start clamoring for Franklin vs. Belfort? And by the way, Dana, Floyd’s opponent is Juan Manuel Marquez, and he’s fabulous.

(Props: CBS Sports via Bloody Elbow)

"It takes true skills to be in the sport of boxing, and mixed martial arts is for beer-drinkers. Boxing is for everybody. I mean, you can’t take my shoes off and take my shirt off and just throw me in a cage. You do that with animals, you don’t do that with humans…In boxing, we know who’s dominating. Black fighters and Hispanic fighers is dominating in this sport. And this is not a racial statement but [Ed. note: Here comes the racial statement] there’s no white fighters in boxing that’s dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new." — Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

What’s ironic is that even in MMA, the two best fighters in the world are Quinton Jackson and King Mo. Also in the interview, Money Mayweather says that his duckery of Manny Pacquiao is due to the fact that Pac-Man isn’t his own boss, and that the recent murders of Steve McNair and Arturo Gatti have scared him off women for a while.

As for Money’s criticisms of MMA, what can you say, really? There’s some people who will never appreciate our sport because it’s done by shoeless people in a cage, and because an MMA match has less rounds than boxing, and because the only thing in the world that requires skill is punching, and because MMA was invented by frustrated white boxers, apparently. When the criticisms are lobbed by boxers themselves, or people who discuss boxing for a living, you can’t really take it too personally.

(Is GSP having the best year ever?)

Georges St. Pierre is going up against boxers Kelly Pavlik, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Joe Calzaghe, and Holly Holm in the “Best Fighter” category of ESPN’s 2008 ESPY Awards. The ceremony — hosted by Justin Timberlake, of all people — will be broadcast on ESPN July 20th at 9 p.m. ET. Last year, Money Mayweather took home the statue, beating out Randy Couture and Quinton Jackson (as well as boxers Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao). This kind of snub must not happen again — head to the ESPY site, register and place your vote for the UFC’s welterweight champ. Obviously, Anderson Silva should be a nominee as well, but he already has that highly-prestigious SpikeTV Guys’ Choice Award, and ESPN probably figured it would simply be too much recognition for one man.

(Bennett’s bringin’ the Krazy to BET tomorrow night.)

It’s tomorrow night, Ladies and Gents. I’m referring, of course, to BET’s “Iron Ring” which kicks off its debut show at 11 p.m. (ET). MMAPayout has a solid rundown of the show, being described as a mix of TUF and the IFL with a twist. The twist being hip hop celebrity types owning the teams. The show is thirty minutes, but the debut will be two back-to-back joints.

Here’s what MP is saying:

The one hour premier episode (two thirty minute episodes combined) focuses largely on the celebrity owners and their coaches. The show has a gritty feel provided by low key production and locations as well as a strong hip hop influence. The opening scenes looks more like the rawness of fight club than the spectacle of major MMA. Whether this will be the case once the actual competition begins remains to be seen, but the product definitely has a distinctive feel, unlike any other MMA production. Street Certified may be a more appropriate title for the series than it was for EliteXC’s previous offering.

There are six teams with fighters reppin’ lightweight – 170 lbs by “Iron Ring” terms – middleweight, and the heavies. Jamie Foxx’s pal, Rashon Kahn, will be the token speech-maker. Chuck “Krazy Horse” Bennett and Shonie Carter are two of the coaches and the other four are Roberto Traven, Abdul Mutakabbir, Jermaine Andre, and Novell G. Bell. WTF? you might be asking, so we have the scoop on those dudes after the jump.

(Jr. and Sr., in happier times.)

Well, we already have a candidate for interview of the year. In this Q+A with FightHype.com, Floyd Mayweather Sr. — estranged father of the undefeated boxing champ who’s been hinting that he wants to compete in MMA — tells Percy Crawford what he really thinks about his son’s possible new money-making scheme. And it’s totally fucking amazing. To wit:

PC: I don’t know if you read yet, but Lil Floyd has been talking to Mark Cuban about fighting in mixed martial arts?
FM: He needs to leave that shit alone. He’s going to get the same fucking thing Vince Phillips got; leg broke, arm broke or whatever. Vince Phillips got his arm broke. You can’t mess with that…that’s what they do. You can’t beat nobody at their own game…All of this he talking about right now, this martial arts shit, I’m telling you, he about to get broke the fuck up right now. I’m telling you, he could forget all of that stuff being cute and how you supposed to hit somebody with a check hook. Man, them motherfucker’s going to take that check hook motherfucker and squeeze your guts out. I’m just being real with you man…If he ever want to take a motherfuckin’ loss, you bout to take one right now motherfucker. Go ahead and try that. One of them motherfuckers grab you and bing, bing…hit the floor twice motherfucker and it’s over with….Lil Floyd about to get his ass tore up man. He ain’t about to whoop them motherfuckers. He can forget that shit!

(Check the watches and necklaces…that’s the difference between MMA money and boxing money.)

A minor hubbub was caused this weekend when an ESPN.com article reported that boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather met with HDNet owner Mark Cuban to discuss “a revolutionary jump to mixed martial arts.” Said Mayweather’s advisor/friend Leonard Ellerbe:

“It’s definitely something he is interested in, and when Floyd makes his move, obviously it’s going to be a mega event…Mark Cuban is a very successful businessman and has some very, very successful business ventures that we’ve discussed…Doing an MMA event with him is most definitely something we are looking at, among many things we are looking at doing with Mark Cuban.”

In turn, Cuban was quoted as saying:

“Floyd is considering fighting with HDNet Fights. We are going to let him visit some gyms to talk to some folks about what it would take to learn. He knows it won’t be easy. But he is getting involved with MMA and HDNet Fights one way or another. He is pumped about it. He wants to go on to the next big thing. Floyd is a brilliant marketer. He follows the money…If I said there’s a guaranteed $30 million payday, Floyd would be lacing them up.”

For the benefit of the dangerously naive, everything in that last quote that I didn’t put bold tags around is utter horseshit, intended to hype up the fact that Floyd Mayweather will soon be having some sort of involvement in HDNet Fights. Mark Cuban, who has been tight with Mayweather since their stint on Dancing With the Stars, is floating that stuff about Mayweather visiting MMA gyms so that you, the stupid fight fan, will pay close attention to Mayweather’s next move (and by extension, HDNet’s). But Mayweather himself never said he’d be strapping on some four-ounce gloves and stepping into a cage. Here’s what he actually did say, two weeks ago, after his TKO of Ricky Hatton: “I don’t know if I’ll fight again. I’m not going to let boxing retire me, I’ll retire from boxing. I accomplished all that I could as a fighter. Now it’s time to be a promoter.”

Let’s take it from the top, because I feel like y’all aren’t hearing me.