Farewell to Mayweather? Fat chance

He danced around the ring and raised his right hand and summoned the cheers to grow louder inside an MGM Grand Garden that was neither sold out nor filled with 13,395 people who actually paid for a ticket.

This is how Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants you to believe his historic boxing career ended, the final seconds of an undefeated run concluding with some fancy dance steps and yet another opponent ridiculously outclassed and beaten.

Until we see Mayweather in May.

Or next September.

Or whenever the predictable moment arrives and he fights again.

Flavia Pennetta beat Roberta Vinci in the all-Italian women's tennis final at the U.S. Open on Saturday, accepted her trophy and large check and immediately retired.

The difference between Pennetta and Mayweather: I believe her.

Maybe it happens in six months. Maybe a year. Maybe longer. But there is no reason to think that the clinic delivered in scoring a unanimous decision over Andre Berto is the final time Mayweather will engage another for tens of millions of dollars.

The scores were 117-111, 118-110 and 120-108, an expected rout by a champion who was a 50-1 favorite when the fight was announced and eventually landed at 18-1 moments before the opening bell.

Promoters spent months selling Berto as a dangerous, aggressive opponent. They forgot the part that while he would throw 301 jabs, he would land just 39.

Mayweather landed 57 percent of his punches to just 17 percent for Berto.

It was all kinds of stupid when talking such a mismatch.

"You have to learn to hang them up when it's time to hang them up," Mayweather said. "I've been in the sport for 19 years and champion for 18 of them. I'm financially stable and had a great career. I leave with all my faculties. Still sharp, still smart. I've accomplished everything there is to accomplish in the sport."

Not everything.

Mayweather is 49-0 and has caught the all-time record of perfection set by Rocky Marciano, whose final fight in 1955 was a bit more dramatic than what we witnessed Saturday, given he knocked out Archie Moore in the ninth round.

But it's more than getting to 50-0. Mayweather has hundreds of millions and his fleet of exquisite cars and his houses and his jet. But nothing seems to motivate him like stepping into that ring, and his ego is larger than his Southern Highlands mansion.

A prediction, one I feel as strong about today as writing in 2012 that Tiger Woods would never win a major golf championship: The itch will eventually get to Mayweather, and we will begin hearing whispers that he will fight again.

His reasoning will be obvious and unsurprising, that he owes it to boxing and his fans and the MGM, his partner from which he helped generate so much money and which will offer a new state-of-the-art arena in which to hold his 50th fight.

I can hear the prepared statements now.

I can see all the enablers standing next to and behind Mayweather grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm not feeling (retirement) for him right now," said Mayweather's father and trainer, Floyd Sr. "Most fighters say they're done and come back. I hope he's done when he says he's done. He has everything he needs. There's no reason to fight anymore. Fight for what? Forget about Marciano's record.

"But you can't stick and lay and go away and come back to do something another day. You can't do that. If he comes back, he should do it soon. Do it early. Fighters say over and over and over they're walking away and then don't. Do it. Walk away. Be done with it. But don't wait a year or two and then come back. That doesn't work anymore."

Mayweather Jr. will be 39 in February, and yet this entire promotion didn't feel a thing like his final one. They likely gave away thousands of tickets just to make the MGM appear full.

There was no buzz around the place. No electricity.

Come on, Justin Bieber didn't even attend. How can Mayweather have a final fight without The Biebs?

It didn't have the feel of John Elway beating the Falcons in the Super Bowl and walking away or Bill Russell taking out Wilt Chamberlain in Game 7 and calling it a career or John Wooden snipping away the net of a 10th national championship.

It had none of that.

It was just another clinic. Another beatdown. Another unanimous decision against an outclassed opponent.

Saturday came and went, and the only thing I felt absolutely sure about when it came to champions retiring was this: We will never again see Flavia Pennetta play a professional tennis match.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on "Seat and Ed" on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him: @edgraney