IOI
Floyd Mayweather has spent most of his life telling the world that nobody can match him. On the PBD Podcast, he named one possible exception. He is five years old.
Patrick Bet-David asked whether there is a Floyd Mayweather in boxing right now. “Not yet,” Mayweather replied, “but my grandson could be the next Floyd Mayweather. My grandson is boxing every day.”
The episode was released on October 20, 2026. Its headline was about money, specifically Mayweather’s claim that $550 million was taken from him. But the moment that travelled furthest on social media was much smaller and more personal: a 49-year-old champion talking about a kindergartener in boxing gloves.
What Mayweather said
According to Mayweather, his daughter makes sure her son goes to the boxing gym every day. “He goes to school, then he goes to his second school,” he said, and added that the gym sessions last “a couple hours, two hours.”
He also described a child who has yet to learn patience. “All he wants to do is spar,” Mayweather said. “But I’m telling him every day you have to learn the techniques about boxing… He wants to box everybody in the gym.”
The rest of the segment was more about family than boxing. “He’s super, super, super smart, intelligent,” Mayweather said, calling the boy “my pride and joy in life”.
My dad is the best man God ever blew breath into, but one of the best gifts God has ever given me is my grandson.
Floyd Mayweather, PBD Podcast #876
Then he explained the thinking behind starting so early: “If we’re looking for the next Floyd Mayweather, we can’t start him off at 16. You’ve got to start him off from the beginning.” He tied that to his own childhood: “The only reason why I’m where I’m at is because my dad basically pushed me to be a fighter.” Asked how early that began, he said, “From what, one, two years old. I was in the gym every day.” He added, “I’m glad my dad pushed me to become a fighter… That’s the best thing in my life that my dad did for me.”
Who is the grandson?
Mayweather did not name the boy on the podcast. Multiple outlets, including talkSPORT, The Sun and World Boxing News, have identified Mayweather’s only publicly known grandson as Kentrell Gaulden Jr., known as “KJ”. He is the son of Mayweather’s eldest daughter, Iyanna “Yaya” Mayweather, and the rapper NBA YoungBoy (Kentrell Gaulden).
KJ’s gym life is not new. For several years, Mayweather and Iyanna have shared clips of him on social media: shadowboxing as a toddler, copying his grandfather’s pad work, and training at the Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas. World Boxing News reported on those clips when he was three. In 2025, The Sun reported that he had begun boxing training at four under his grandfather’s guidance.
A family business
If the claim sounds far-fetched, consider the family it comes from. Boxing runs through the Mayweathers.
- Floyd Mayweather Sr., Floyd’s father, was a welterweight contender. In 1978 he went ten rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard before losing. Floyd brought up that fight on the podcast.
- Roger Mayweather, Floyd’s uncle, became a two-division world champion. He won the WBA super featherweight title in 1983 and the WBC light welterweight title in 1987, and finished 59-13. He later trained his nephew for much of his career, and died in March 2020 at 58.
- Jeff Mayweather, another uncle, also fought professionally and later worked as a trainer.
Floyd’s own start matches what he described. The New York Times reported in 2010 that as a one-year-old he was held up to speed bags by his father. According to the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, he was “fitted with boxing gloves while he was still a toddler” and boxed competitively from age seven. He went 84-6 as an amateur, won a bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and retired from professional boxing in 2017 with a 50-0 record after beating Conor McGregor.
Boxing bloodlines do not always continue. Mayweather’s sons have not taken up the sport, according to World Boxing News. Other famous fighting families have produced mixed results. Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, became an unbeaten world champion. Marvis Frazier, son of Joe Frazier, challenged for the heavyweight title in 1983 but never matched his father’s career.
How young is too young?
Mayweather’s comments touch a long-running debate over when, and how hard, children should be pushed in sport, especially a combat sport.
The case for an early start, as Mayweather tells it, is that elite skill takes years to build and that his own career was built on a childhood spent in the gym. He also pointed out that he is teaching technique, not just letting the boy spar. Amateur boxing bodies argue that supervised training builds fitness, discipline and confidence. When paediatricians criticised youth boxing in 2011, USA Boxing replied that young boxers in registered programmes are “highly supervised” and that “safety is the number one priority.”
The case for caution comes largely from medical bodies. In 2011 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Canadian Paediatric Society said they opposed boxing for children and adolescents, because the sport rewards deliberate blows to the head and carries a risk of concussion and long-term brain injury. The AAP reaffirmed that statement in 2020 and retired it in March 2025. Separately, a 2016 AAP clinical report on sports specialisation advised that most children delay focusing on a single sport until about age 15–16, to lower the risk of overuse injuries and burnout.
Where the rules sit: USA Boxing does not register competitors until age eight, and its youngest “Pee-Wee” bouts use 90-second rounds with headgear. For children aged 8–17 it also offers a non-contact “junior fitness” membership that covers bag and pad work but not sparring.
Mayweather has not said that KJ will compete soon. On the podcast he described daily gym sessions, his own push to teach technique, and a five-year-old who mostly wants to spar.
Watch the full episode
The grandson segment begins at about 41:24.
