Floyd Mayweather insists that he won’t chase a record-breaking 50-0 record following his easy win over Andre Berto last night.
Mayweather held on to his WBC and WBA welterweight titles with little trouble in Las Vegas in the early hours of Sunday morning to record his 49th consecutive win.
This draws him equal with the legendary Rocky Marciano, though he says he won’t be fighting on to make it a perfect half century.
"My career is over, that's official,” he said in the ring afterwards.
"You've got to know when to hang it up. I'm close to 40 now. There's nothing left to prove in the sport of boxing. Now I just want to spend time with my family"
As expected, he beat Berto with relative ease and the judges’ scorecards of 120-108, 118-110 and 117-111 tell how the the five-weight world champion won.
Mayweather was criticised for taking on this fight, with many seeing it as an easy route into history.
It came on the back of his win over Manny Pacquiao in what was dubbed the Fight of the Century, though in reality that bout never lived up to the hype.
Mayweather, the highest earning sportsman in the world has announced his retirement and reversed that decision in the past.
He returned to face Juan Manuel Marquez in July 2009, 21 months after 'retiring' following his knockout of Ricky Hatton.
Yet the veteran does not have any contractual obligations to fulfil after completing his highly lucrative six-fight deal with Showtime
With three defeats in his last six fights, Berto was largely viewed as an unworthy foe for Mayweather, with British pair Amir Khan and Kell Brook and rising American Keith Thurman seen as more attractive alternatives.
Berto tried his best but, as anticipated, he was not on the same level as Mayweather.
The pair were involved in a verbal exchange as the ninth round came to an end before then going toe-to-toe, with Mayweather coming out on top,.
The pair were warned by referee in Kenny Bayliss in the tenth for their trash-talking.
Maywather's punch output was low but his accuracy was high and he started to showboat towards the end of the 11th with an 'Ali Shuffle' to an equal amount of cheers and boos from the MGM crowd.
He closed strongly with a right uppercut rocking Berto in the final minute but could not force his first stoppage victory since beating Victor Ortiz in 2011.
He sank to his knees at the conclusion of the bout, knowing he had done more than enough to bow out of the sport with one more victory on his ledger.
Meanwhile on the undercard in Las Vegas, Britain’s George Groves came up short in his third attempt to win a world title.
He dropped a split decision to Badou Jack, who retained his WBC super-middleweight belt.
Groves overcame a first round knockdown at the MGM Grand and fought valiantly in the first half of the bout but his Swedish-born opponent was the superior fighter in the championship rounds.
This was the third loss of his professional career - following a pair of world title defeats to compatriot Carl Froch.
