Floyd Mayweather is coming out of retirement and will return to professional boxing after his exhibition fight with Mike Tyson this spring, the 48-year-old has announced.

Former multi-weight world champion Mayweather retired from boxing in 2017, unbeaten in 50 bouts, though he has appeared in several exhibition fights since.

"I still have what it takes to set more records in the sport of boxing," Mayweather, said in a statement on Friday.

"From my upcoming Mike Tyson event to my next professional fight afterwards – no one will generate a bigger gate, have a larger global broadcast audience and generate more money with each event – then [sic] my events."

A first professional fight is tentatively scheduled for this summer, against an opponent to be announced. Ring Magazine recently reported that the fight with Tyson will take place on April 25 in the Congo, though neither date nor location has been officially confirmed.

Details will be revealed "in the coming weeks," he said.

Nicknamed "Money", Mayweather was once the world's highest-paid athlete, with earnings of US$300 million in 2015, according to Forbes.

At his peak he was widely considered boxing's pound-for-pound king, dominating the welterweight division for more than a decade.

Mayweather has also spent time in prison for one of a string of domestic violence incidents. But his supreme fitness, work ethic, athleticism and boxing brain earned him the respect of his peers in the ring.

Mayweather's last professional bout was in 2017 against UFC star Conor McGregor.

Mayweather has signed an exclusive agreement with promoter CSI Sports/Fight Sports, to begin following his Tyson bout.

Tyson, 59, last appeared in the ring in a lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned prizefighter Jake Paul in November 2024 in Texas. He barely landed a punch in that Netflix-backed bout, which was watched by a live crowd of around 70,000 spectators with an estimated millions more tuning in around the world. (AFP)



Edited by Robert Kemp