Floyd Mayweather Jr is not afraid to show off his wealth. He wears it around his neck, on his wrists, on his fingers, in the clothes he wears, in the fleet of cars parked in his substantial garage. But Mayweather claims that he is not boxing for the money. Considering one of his hobbies is throwing piles of banknotes into crowds of people, that revelation may have come as a surprise to himself.

“I used to think I was fighting for the money,” Mayweather said. “But I’ve got enough money, so I’m obviously fighting for something else. I’m fighting for the love of the sport.”

Mayweather, 31, defends his WBC welterweight title against Ricky Hatton at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas next Saturday. But constantly being portrayed as the bad guy does not always sit well with him, especially when he feels that he has built his comfortable lifestyle on the back of hard work.

“I try to show kids from my background, an urban background, that everything I have got I got legally, by dedicating myself to my craft,” he said. “I never sold anything to my peers. I have given jobs to guys. Some can cope, some can’t, but I always like to give people a chance.”

While Mayweather keeps his family close, they hardly gave him a solid start in life. His mother was a drug addict, he had an aunt who died from drugs, an uncle who shot his father, Floyd Sr, in the leg while he was holding Floyd Jr, who was a toddler at the time. The boxer’s childhood reminiscences also include seeing his father selling drugs to his mother.

Floyd Sr, whose main involvement in Mayweather’s upbringing was to teach him how to box, missed the youngster’s appearance at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 because he was serving 5½ years in jail for drug trafficking. In the circumstances, Mayweather has always seemed remarkably well adjusted.

“Only God can judge me,” he said. “I must be a good person because look at the hand I have been dealt. I know how I treat people, but a lot of times I am being prejudged because of all the things that have been written about me in the past. People don’t write about when I gave children presents for Christmas or Thanksgiving. I conduct myself like a gentleman. You don’t see me pushing Ricky Hatton, but I like talking trash.

“In every fight there has to be a good guy and a bad guy. When I fought Arturo Gatti I was the bad guy. When I fought Oscar De La Hoya I was the bad guy. When I fought Zab Judah they thought he was worse.”

For the Hatton bout, the American is again being portrayed as the nasty guy to the Englishman’s cheerful persona. But having announced his retirement after beating Carlos Baldomir in November 2006 and again after beating De La Hoya in May, Mayweather admits that he has no idea if next Saturday’s bout will be his final one.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished nearly everything a fighter can accomplish in this great sport of boxing, but I need to sit back and talk it over with my mother,” he said. “Right now I’m not interested in anything except my fight on December 8. I just want to focus on one fight at a time. I am going to overlook nobody and see where we go from there.”

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