Floyd Mayweather 'proved he will never fight Gennady Golovkin' by taking Conor McGregor bout

Floyd Mayweather has been running scared of Gennady Golovkin and took a fight with Conor McGregor to avoid the WBA, WBC, IBF and IBO world champion, according to his chief promoter. The Kazahstan fighter remains unbeaten after his controversial draw with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and is close to matching the unbeaten American's longevity, having fought 38 times during his career.

Golovkin's and Mayweather's paths have never crossed, centrally due to the vastly different weight classes in which they compete. While Triple G recently weighed in at 160lbs for his clash with Mexican Alvarez, the now retired Mayweather tipped the scales at 149.5lbs ahead of facing the UFC's McGregor in the pair's cross-code bout in August.

Previously, Golovkin described a possible meeting with Mayweather – who spent the last decade of his career at light middleweight – as the "dream fight" and admitted he would be willing to come down to 154lbs to secure a meeting with the 50-0 five-weight world champion. But K2 promotions chief Tom Loeffler says Mayweather's decision to accept a bout with McGregor suggests he has no intention of coming out of retirement again.

"There's a reason [Mayweather] fought Conor McGregor and would never entertain fighting GGG at 154lbs," Loeffler told Sky Sports. "Out of respect to Floyd, he is the only fighter that Gennady would have come to 154 for.

"There were never serious talks. We can't blame Floyd because he was never in the [middleweight] division. If he was in the division it would be a different story but he's never fought at 160lbs. Floyd said it would be 'easy work' because GGG has 'no special effects' but realistically they know what the outcome would have been."

Talks are already underway between Golovkin's representatives and Golden Boy Promotions, who look after Canelo, over a rematch between the two in 2018 after their drawn middleweight clash in Las Vegas.

Billy Joe Saunders, the holder of the WBO middleweight title, had ambitions of meeting with winner of the clash, but must now be forced to wait for the rematch to continue his ambitions of unifying the division. Even so, Loeffler admits a bout with four-weight world champion Miguel Cotto is more attractive.

"Absolutely, if there's a big fight that makes sense we would consider it," Loeffler added. "We've been trying to fight Billy Joe Saunders for a while. But Gennady has crossed over into being one of the most marketable boxers in the US. A legend like Cotto is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. This is the type of fight that would motivate Gennady."