Floyd Sr. provides laughs, but son is strictly business

Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he learns something from every fight. The same can be said of his prefight news conferences. Maybe he's learned how to jazz up what have been relatively tepid events.

After Mayweather's past few news conferences were downright snoozers, he trotted out a not-so-secret weapon Wednesday at the MGM Grand's David Copperfield Theater to help promote Saturday's final fight of his career, against Andre Berto at the Grand Garden.

He gave his father a live microphone. It's a sure-fire recipe for zaniness.

And from the moment Floyd Sr. opened his mouth, the energy level for this promotion picked up exponentially. Boxing's poet laureate wasted no time with a preamble. He didn't thank anyone. Instead, he let the verbiage fly, even if some of it was incoherent.

"Berto? Forty-nine and 0; You got to go," the elder Mayweather chided his son's opponent as he was off to the races. "Floyd's the man to meet if you wanna get beat.

"He's rough. He's tough. He knows his stuff."

And on and on it went for a good five minutes. Mayweather Sr. even made a Muhammad Ali-like prediction as he wrapped up his rhyme, saying: "Berto, you'll see, you'll be knocked out in three."

It was good for a few laughs, and even Berto and Virgil Hunter, his trainer, smiled.

But Floyd Sr.'s son was in no mood to joke around. He talked about himself, his accomplishments in boxing, why he is the best ever in the sport and how he doesn't shortchange himself or his craft.

"I'm always prepared," he said in explaining how he got to 48-0 with 26 knockouts. "I'm always prepared physically, and I'm always prepared mentally.

"When guys are sleeping at 4 in the morning, we're working. When guys are training at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, we're working. It's the little things that I do that have allowed me to be 48-0."

Mayweather said he prepared properly for Berto (30-3, 23 KOs).

"Berto's not a pushover," Mayweather said. "But I know what it takes to win a fight of this magnitude. You may have fighters who are faster than me. You may have fighters who punch harder than me. You may have fighters who are more athletic than me. But there's no one who can adjust during a fight like me. I believe in my skills and in my talent. I've been in there with the best, and the results have always been the same. Why? Because I always keep my eyes on the prize. I don't focus on what's outside the ring. I focus on the guy in front of me."

Berto chided the media for badmouthing the fight, in which Mayweather is a minus-3,000 betting favorite at the MGM Resorts' sports books and Berto is plus-1,000. He said he's looking to change everyone's opinion.

"Saturday night, I'm coming for respect," he said.

Hunter said he doesn't want Berto to match wits with Mayweather. Instead, he wants him to just go out and be himself, be aggressive, take the fight to Mayweather, do his best and see what happens.

"Does Andre Berto have the ability to fight over his head? Of course he can," Hunter said. "With Floyd's I.Q., we're not going to try to match it. But there's something brewing in the air with these two guys. There's something personal. There's some real stuff going on. Trust me, it's going to be a rumble."

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj