Floyd Mayweather Jr. makes millions backing his own bouts. Can he turn it into a billion?

''All money is not good money,'' says Mayweather.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not short on hubris. Sit ringside in his Las Vegas gym, ask him what it was like to meet President Obama. "You should ask him what it was like to meet me," he says. Ask about his fights, you get this: "When Floyd Mayweather fights it's the Super Bowl. I move the economy." Ask about his business: "God has blessed me to be recession-proof."

If only the American consumer were so confident. But Mayweather, 33, has his reasons. He is the best pound-for-pound fighter of his generation (with six world championships in five weight divisions), undefeated (41--0) and the biggest draw in boxing. Through his 14-year career he's earned an estimated $200 million from purses and pay-per-view revenue (boxing is his only significant source of income).

The biggest reason Mayweather's exuberance is hardly irrational: He promotes his own fights and reaps the rewards of ownership, retaining millions of dollars more per bout than he would otherwise. Long term he plans to turn this capital into a sports-and-entertainment powerhouse with equity stakes in teams, live event promotions, as well as film and television. If it works, he's got a chance--a long-shot chance, to be sure--to end up on The Forbes 400. "If I knew at the beginning of my career what I know now," he says, "I would probably already be a billionaire."

Far-fetched? Maybe. But Mayweather has yet to peak as a boxer or a businessman. He plans to fight for five more years, and FORBES estimates he racked up $65 million in earnings during the past 12 months, second among all athletes (Tiger Woods earned $100 million). Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has offered to guarantee $25 million if Mayweather fights WBO World Welterweight Champion Manny Pacquiao at his new stadium (the two sides have yet to agree on terms for drug testing). "Mayweather is the only fighter for which I would put up that kind of money," says Jones. With PPV revenue, experts say, a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight could gross a record $250 million. Mayweather's take? In excess of $50 million, since he need not pay a promoter the traditional 25% cut. If his career trajectory continues, he'll soon surpass onetime rival Oscar De La Hoya's $300 million in lifetime earnings from boxing. Not a bad nest egg for retirement--if he hangs on to it.

Given the sport's history of fighters who raked in millions and ended up broke (Mike Tyson comes to mind), Mayweather is hardly a sure thing. A recent arrest amid domestic violence accusations and an expletive-filled rant on YouTube are less-than-textbook additions to his résumé. Still, since forming Mayweather Promotions in 2007 the champ is proving a savvy dealmaker. Stints on Dancing with the Stars and WrestleMania increased his exposure--and marketing value--helping attract big-name sponsors like AT&T, Cerveza Tecate, DeWalt Tools, Quaker State, StubHub and Southwest Airlines to his fights.

He understood the potential of reality television before any other athlete. In 2007 HBO aired 24/7, a four-episode series that went inside the lives and preparations of Mayweather and De La Hoya before their WBC super welterweight title bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that May (Mayweather won a split decision). It was a huge (for cable) hit, turning the fight into the most lucrative in boxing history, with a live gate of $19 million and a record 2.4 million household PPV buys, which generated $120 million. Since then HBO has replicated the 24/7 series with eight other fights and another featuring Nascar champion Jimmie Johnson. "Mayweather is a marketing genius," says Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya's boxing company.

The mainstream fame means even lower-wattage opponents can generate lucrative fights for Mayweather. His victory over Shane Mosley this May was the second-highest-rated nonheavyweight pay-per-view bout in history, selling 1.4 million views with $78 million in revenue. Mayweather also got $22.5 million in prize money and netted $40 million in total from the fight.

Yet Mayweather, who grew up poor in Grand Rapids, Mich., sees boxing as the start of something bigger. Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, says Mayweather is a hungry business student. They've talked at length about investing together, including a possible stake in the Mavs or a baseball team. "I don't think people realize just how focused he is on being more successful outside the ring than he is inside," he says.

The biggest lesson Mayweather has learned: "All money is not good money," he says. "I get people every day where someone is offering me $100 million for a deal. If Nike  were to come to me right now and offer me a five-year deal for $100 million, I'd say no thank you. Give me 1% or 2% ownership."

Muhammad Ali called him the best boxer ever. He never lost an amateur fight. He won his first 40 bouts as a professional. He held both the welterweight and middleweight championship belts. There's never been another boxer like Sugar Ray Robinson.

Robinson is the subject of a new biography by Wil Haygood called Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. Haygood tells Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep that Robinson was more than just a great fighter.

"He was the first boxer to take dance and culture and music into the ring," Haygood says. "He was the first boxer to really fight the mob, to retain ownership of his fight rights. He owned a nightclub, which was really a good rebuke to the segregationist nightclubs in New York. Robinson said, 'All right, if my friends Lena Horne and Langston Hughes and Miles Davis and Duke Ellington and Billy Eckstine are not feeling welcome downtown, I'll build a swing club for them uptown and everybody can come.' "

Robinson had elegant taste, Haygood says, and he wanted to elevate the taste of the audience that came to see him box. "I think he wanted people not just to come and say, 'Knock him out, make him bleed ... it's you against Jake LaMotta, black against white.'"

By contrast, LaMotta, Robinson's biggest rival in the ring, was "very blunt, very direct, brutish. He really fought to eat."

Haygood says the two fighters, who fought six times between 1942 and 1951, couldn't have been more different. LaMotta "fought to survive the mean streets of New York City." Robinson "wanted to look beautiful in between rounds," and had a valet to fix his hair if it flew out of place while in the ring.

"Everything that Sugar Ray Robinson represented, Jake LaMotta hated," Haygood says. "Everything Jake LaMotta represented, Sugar Ray Robinson found crude."

In 1943, an undefeated Robinson met LaMotta in the ring for the second time. In the eighth round, LaMotta got the better of Robinson.

"Sugar Ray was coming up out of a crouch," Haygood says. "Jake LaMotta saw an opening — Sugar Ray's chin — and he threw every inch, every muscle, every pound of extra weight and power into Sugar Ray Robinson, and knocked him clean out of the ring."

Robinson had never been knocked down before, "let alone knocked out of the ring," says Haygood. The moment, shockingly captured on film, shook Robinson up. He instantly wanted a rematch. According to Haygood, he told his corner man, "I have to get him back. I have to avenge this. I cannot let Jake LaMotta walk this Earth thinking he's a better fighter than me."

Three weeks later, Robinson fought LaMotta again, and won.

The fighters would meet three more times, with the last fight coming in 1951. The epic bout was the first between the pair to be nationally televised, and viewers at home got quite a shock.

"The fight was so physical, by the fourth round, both fighters were bleeding. By the sixth round, you could hear the grunts from each fighter," Haygood says. "It was almost a fight to the death. ... Many people sat in their living rooms and were aghast at the amount of blood dripping onto their silk trunks, at the amount of blood flying onto the referee."

The fight, which was dramatized in Martin Scorsese's film Raging Bull,, lasted 13 rounds, with Robinson pulling out a hard-won victory.

"Robinson showed that a style and fleetness of foot could win over power and muscle," Haygood says.

But Robinson's aspirations were to transcend boxing. And according to Haygood, he succeeded.

"He was a black man during an era of segregation," Haygood says. "Where else could he have made $25,000 in one night, one fight?"

Still, Haygood says he thinks Robinson would have preferred to switch places with Duke Ellington or Billy Eckstine: "He loved the freedom of the jazz cats, and I don't think he realized how much of a giant he was to them."

He wants a blood test within days of their tentatively scheduled March 13 fight, but Pacquiao's reluctance puts proposed world welterweight title bout in jeopardy.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants Manny Pacquiao to submit to Olympic-style drug tests, including a blood test within days of their tentatively scheduled March 13 bout, and failing to agree to these terms could threaten the fight, Mayweather's camp said Tuesday.

Pacquiao has expressed reluctance to submit to a blood test within 30 days of the proposed world welterweight title fight, which will be staged at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

"As management for Floyd, we're insisting this Olympic-style, random [blood] testing take place to assure it's a level field before the biggest fight in history," Mayweather's advisor Leonard Ellerbe said. "We're definitely at an impasse."

Mayweather's promoter Richard Schaefer said a Pacquiao promoter told him the Filipino superstar would not agree to a blood test within 30 days of the bout because of his superstition against testing.

Pacquiao and Mayweather have previously submitted, and passed, urine tests for performance-enhancing and illegal drugs supervised by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said a blood test can allow testers to detect use of energy-boosting synthetic EPO, human growth hormone and "a number of potent performance-enhancers not detectable in urine. . . . With a [30-day] window like that, you could dope to the gills and get away with it."

Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, said Mayweather's push for blood testing is a ploy to avoid fighting Pacquiao, who has won back-to-back fighter of the year awards and has battered world champions Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto.

"I knew Floyd wanted a way out of the fight," Roach said.

Roach said his concern about the timing of a blood test has nothing to do with hiding anything. "It's 100% mental. If it's in your head that [a blood test] weakens you, then it will weaken you," he said.

Roach suggested a compromise, saying he would allow Pacquiao to give a blood sample one week before the fight, but no closer than three days before the bout.

"One would assume that he'd find it acceptable to be subject to the same testing that Lance Armstrong, Kobe Bryant and Floyd Mayweather agree to," Mayweather's promoter Schaefer said.

In another development, Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said Schaefer's Golden Boy Promotions has applied for a permit to stage the fight at MGM Grand..

Several venues, including Staples Center and Dallas Cowboys Stadium, expressed interest in staging the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout with guarantees of $20 million and up. But MGM Grand, with tickets ranging from $500 to $2,500 and other related Las Vegas properties offering closed-circuit seats, can apparently offer more than $30 million.