Manager Defends Mayweather

NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s manager has defended the boxer's decision to fight at Wrestlemania XXIV next month. Mayweather, the undefeated WBC welterweight champion and widely considered his sport's best pound-for-pound fighter, has taken up a $20 million offer to battle 7-foot World Wrestling Entertainment star Big Show in Orlando, Florida on March 30.

Mayweather will be conceding around 250 pounds to the WWE superstar but his manager Leonard Ellerbe says the move is all about underlining Mayweather's credentials as an entertainer rather than just a boxer, just as he did when the champion appeared on ABC's `Dancing With The Stars' last November. "This is a tremendous, tremendous event, it's entertainment," Ellerbe said in a phone interview Tuesday. "Like anything, it's also a business and it's my responsibility to continue to expand his fanbase and take the Mayweather brand to another level. "Floyd's one of the biggest entertainers in all of entertainment, he already is transcending boxing, he is the face of the sport and for that reason we've been able to change the model of how a fighter conducts his business at the elite level."

To that end, Mayweather's manager insisted the diversion into WWE had nothing to do with helping to promote the boxer's proposed rematch with Oscar De La Hoya this September. "Floyd's an entertainer. This is all about Floyd Mayweather, it has nothing to do with Oscar De la Hoya," Ellerbee said. "Floyd Mayweather's getting $20 million to wrestle in WrestleMania. It has nothing to do with the September fight, I'm trying to take Floyd to a whole other level. "The (WWE) fight speaks for itself and we're not even thinking about Oscar De La Hoya or boxing right now. We're going to do one thing at a time and Floyd's showing his versatility that he can go off and do many, many different things. There'll be a number of other different things he'll do before September and other huge announcements."

Ellerbe dismissed the suggestion that Mayweather was risking an injury that could derail his plans for an even bigger payday. "There's always a risk in anything you do," he said. "You can be getting ready to sing a song and trip and fall so there's a risk in anything. That just comes with the territory."