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Floyd Mayweather Jr. came to the post-fight news conference in June dressed in a suit and flashing his pearly white smile. He was soaking in congratulations following a brutally one-sided, sixth-round destruction of junior welterweight titlist Arturo Gatti.

Although virtually no one had given Gatti a legitimate chance of defeating the ultra-fast and skilled pound-for-pound king, the fight was still viewed by many as the biggest fight of Mayweather's career because, like Gatti, it was his first appearance as a pay-per-view headliner.

Although it was a dud competitively, it was a hit commercially, selling out Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall and generating about 350,000 pay-per-view buys. It appeared to have set Mayweather up for big future business.

Mayweather stood at the podium after the fight and declared that, from now on, he was a pay-per-view fighter.

A superstar.

Nothing but big fights, he said. Nothing but star opponents, he promised.

And Mayweather, 28, certainly didn't lack for marquee potential opponents with recognized junior welterweight champ Ricky Hatton, titlist Miguel Cotto, undisputed welterweight champ Zab Judah, welterweight belt holder Antonio Margarito and former welterweight champ Shane Mosley all in or around his weight class.

There was even Winky Wright, the middleweight star and former undisputed junior middleweight champ, who was willing to return to 154 pounds after Mayweather called him out.

So when Mayweather (34-0, 23 KOs) steps back into the ring on Saturday night (HBO, 9:45 ET) he's going to be in a big-time fight that the whole boxing world is excited about, right?

Wrong.

Mayweather isn't fighting any of those guys. Instead, he is moving up to welterweight for a mismatch against Sharmba Mitchell (56-4, 30 KOs), a past-his-prime former junior welterweight titlist.

They'll fight a 12-round, nontitle bout at the Rose Garden in Portland, Ore., in part because there was virtually no interest anywhere else in the country in hosting a fight that has barely registered a blip on the boxing radar screen.

Two fights ago, Mitchell, 35, was destroyed in three rounds by then-champ Kostya Tszyu in a blowout as one-sided as Mayweather's rout of Gatti. In his next bout in June, Mitchell moved up to welterweight, and although he won a five-round technical decision, it was hardly an impressive outing.

Mayweather, however, said he is not listening to the critics who have bashed the fight since it was made.

"A lot of people are saying that Sharmba Mitchell is not a No. 1 guy, but none of the No. 1's will fight me," said Mayweather, who is getting a staggering $3.75 million from HBO for a fight many expect to amount to nothing more than an exhibition. "He's a former world champion, a good left-hander, and he's only got two losses in the last 12 years. I'm not overlooking Sharmba. He has a lot left.

"I look at every fight as my biggest challenge. If the No. 1 guy doesn't want to step to the plate, I'll go for the No. 2 guy. If the No. 2 guy doesn't want it, I'll fight the No. 3 guy. I see Sharmba as the No. 3 guy right now."

Unlike the verbal assault he laid on Gatti before their fight, Mayweather has gone much easier on Mitchell.

"I have no reason to bad-mouth Sharmba because his record speaks for itself," Mayweather said. "A lot of people are overlooking Sharmba, but I don't see it that way."

Mitchell said he is not concerned with being such a heavy underdog. In fact, he likes it.

"I don't worry about it," Mitchell said. "Floyd is a good fighter and I won't take anything away from him. I never overlook any fighter. I know it'll be tough, but that brings the best out of me. I'd rather be the underdog. I don't want to always be favored to win. You start to overlook things, and that's just not me. I'm ready to get this fight over with and become pound-for-pound king."

Besides the shots Mayweather has taken for his selection of opponents, he has also weathered a serious promotional storm over the past few months.

With the help of HBO, Mayweather and adviser Alan Haymon broke their promotional agreement with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, and signed a one-fight deal with Dan Goossen, who is promoting Saturday's card. An enraged Arum sued.

Eventually, HBO backed down and convinced Mayweather and Haymon to settle with Top Rank. They did last month. In return, Arum dropped his lawsuit (despite ongoing hostility between Top Rank and HBO); Mayweather agreed to return to Top Rank after Saturday's fight with a new two-year deal; and HBO will televise the match.

Mayweather hasn't talked about the business issues. He prefers to focus instead on boxing and a future that, the Mitchell fight aside, he expects to include significant bouts. If he beats Mitchell, it could set up a spring fight with Judah, which would certainly qualify as a major event.

"I don't know what weight I will end up going to," Mayweather said. "If there's a good challenge at 140, we'll go there. It's about making money and being a legend in boxing. A victory for Floyd Mayweather sets up a shot at the undisputed welterweight championship. That's everybody in boxing's goal -- to make money and be a legend."

Hopkins corner: Bernard Hopkins is training for his bid to regain the middleweight championship from Jermain Taylor without his longtime trainer, Bouie Fisher.

Fisher was unable to join Hopkins in training camp because he is attending to his ill wife, Peggy.

Hopkins, who has been with Fisher for most of his career, said he understands that family comes first. He said he is dedicating the fight to Fisher.

"This fight is for Bouie," Hopkins said. "I want him here with me but it's a family situation. He's dealing with some things at home with his lovely wife."

Hopkins, who is training for the Dec. 3 rematch in Big Bear, Calif., is instead training with Fisher's longtime assistant, Naazim Richardson.

"Naazim has been with me 9-10 years," Hopkins said. "A lot of people lose him in the shuffle, but he is one of the people who has been important to my career. I feel very comfortable with Naazim. I could have gotten any trainer, but I said to myself that this guy has been with me for so many years. When we're in the gym, he's the one who works with me in the ring, holds the pads for me. He's worked on the strategy and been a mastermind along with Bouie."

Richardson might be most commonly known for irritating Felix Trinidad before his 2001 fight with Hopkins by forcing Trinidad to rewrap his hands after Richardson questioned the legality of the initial wrap.

Margarito finds home: When the Nov. 12 Vitali Klitschko-Hasim Rahman heavyweight championship fight was canceled following Klitschko's injury and subsequent retirement, it left Arum looking for a home for the televised undercard bouts.

In particular, it left welterweight titlist Margarito, who has been surprisingly overlooked by HBO and Showtime executives, in need of a fight date.

So Top Rank is creating one for him, and is planning a pay-per-view card for Feb. 18. Margarito will headline against Manuel Gomez, in what was supposed to be the Klitschko-Rahman cofeature.

Junior welterweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who was also supposed to fight Nov. 12, will also be on the card. One potential opponent is Grover Wiley, in what would be a family grudge match. Wiley pulled off a major upset when he made Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. quit during their September fight.

Top Rank is also planning to put on the Feb. 18 card interim flyweight titlist Jorge Arce in a defense, and junior flyweight champ Brian Viloria, possibly against former strawweight champ Jose Antonio Aguirre.

The other fight from the Klitschko-Rahman card -- junior bantamweight champ Martin Castillo's rematch with former champ Alexander Munoz -- will be added to the Jan. 21 HBO PPV card headlined by the Erik Morales-Manny Pacquiao rematch.

Tarver thinks big: Light heavyweight king Antonio Tarver will play the heavyweight champion in a forthcoming movie, and the experience has him thinking about making the jump for real.

"I'm looking to go on to bigger and better things, and I'm going to be taking it to the next level," Tarver said. "I think the heavyweight division is in dire need of CPR and I'm gonna be the breath of fresh air."

Tarver is filming his role as heavyweight champ Mason "The Line" Dixon in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Rocky Balboa," the sixth installment in the popular "Rocky" series. Filming wraps in January.

Tarver, who bulked up to 200 pounds for the role, said he sees the movie as a case of art imitating life.

"Mason Dixon is a very brash, very skillful heavyweight champion," Tarver said. "Unfortunately, he came along at a time when the heavyweight division is much like it is today, and people are remembering the great days when Rocky Balboa was on top. It must have been a fortune teller [Stallone] who wrote the script because that's what we're gunning for in the near future. Acting in this film gives me an opportunity to really feel what being the heavyweight champion of the world is all about."

Battle of Britain: The Dec. 10 British heavyweight showdown between Audley Harrison, the 2000 Olympic gold medalist, and Danny Williams, who upset Mike Tyson and then lost a world title challenge to Vitali Klitschko, will be available to American fight fans on pay-per-view.

The card, which be televised live from London's ExCel Arena at 3 p.m. ET, will also include the American television debut of heavily-hyped British lightweight prospect Amir Khan, who rocketed to stardom in England by winning a silver medal in the 2004 Olympics.

"I'm looking for a name on my record and Williams, as a former world title challenger, fits the bill," Harrison said. "After I beat Williams, I don't want anyone saying Danny Williams was shot."

Williams, who has been in a war of words with Harrison since the fight was made, said: "Audley's got a big mouth and I can't wait to put my fist through it and shut him up. I will not give him a second's rest until I knock him out. This is going to be an all-out war."

This will be the second card from England in two months to be offered live in the United States, perhaps signaling the start of a trend. The Ricky Hatton-Carlos Maussa junior welterweight unification bout is on Nov. 26.

Grow up: Heavyweights Sultan Ibragimov, a 2000 Olympic silver medalist, and Lance Whitaker came to blows during a staredown as they posed for photographers following a news conference in New York to promote their Dec. 15 fight.

News conference brawls are nothing new in boxing, but this time an innocent bystander, Ibragimov matchmaker Sampson Lewkowicz, was injured. Lewkowicz, trying to separate the fighters, appeared to have been hit by both as they began throwing punches at each other, and was knocked unconscious. He was taken from the Manhattan steak house to a hospital by ambulance.

He is OK.

Ibragimov and Whitaker are supposed to fight on a Warrior's Boxing pay-per-view card at Hollywood, Fla., headlined by heavyweight Samuel Peter vs. Robert Hawkins.

Boxing promoters rarely let a promotional opportunity pass no matter how tasteless, so it was no surprise that shortly following the melee, Warrior's Boxing issued a press release detailing the incident.

No surgery for Sturm: Middleweight contender Felix Sturm, who had to pull out of a Nov. 26 fight with minor titlist Maselino Masoe because of an injured left elbow, will not need surgery as originally announced by promoter Universum.

Instead, according to Universum, Sturm will rest the elbow for a few months and hopes to be able to fight again in early 2006.

Sturm is best known to American fans a questionable decision loss to Oscar De La Hoya in June 2004.

Universum's show next week will still go on, however, with bantamweight titlist Wladimir Sidorenko (17-0, 6 KOs) making his first defense against Jose de Jesus Lopez (21-5, 16 KOs). Also on the card: Michel Trabant (41-2, 18 KOs) faces Mark Suarez (24-2, 12 KOs) in a welterweight title eliminator and junior welterweight Mohamad Abdullaev (15-2, 12 KOs), in his first fight since losing a title shot against Miguel Cotto in June, faces Andreas Kotelnik (24-2, 11 KOs).

Quick hits: Although Vitali Klitschko gave up his heavyweight championship and retired because of a knee injury earlier this month, the WBC has given Klitschko an easy path to a title shot if he has second thoughts about retirement. The WBC has announced that Klitschko has "the right to return as immediate mandatory official challenger if someday he would wish to come back to professional boxing, instead of retiring definitively."

• The junior middleweight showdown between former champions Fernando Vargas and Shane Mosley is all but set for Feb. 25 and will take place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Official announcement is expected in early December.

• Laila Ali (21-0, 18 KOs), the No. 1 female fighter in the world and the daughter of Muhammad Ali, will fight on Dec. 17 in Berlin on the undercard of heavyweight titlist John Ruiz's mandatory defense against Nicolay Valuev of Russia. The bout will be Ali's first since announcing that she is in the process of divorcing her husband, Johnny McClain, after five years of marriage.

• Featherweight titlist Chris John of Indonesia suffered an ankle injury while training, likely forcing a postponement of a Dec. 9 mandatory defense in Indonesia against division king Juan Manuel Marquez.

• Heavyweight contender Calvin Brock (26-0, 21 KOs) faces David Bostice (35-9-1, 15 KOs) in a 10-rounder Saturday night in Charlotte, N.C., Brock's hometown. There is no television coverage of the bout, but it is available via Webcast to Maxboxing.com subscribers.

• Junior flyweight titlist Roberto "The Spider" Vasquez of Panama makes his second title defense against Nerys Espinoza of Nicaragua on Saturday night in Panama. Vasquez, a southpaw, won the title with a 10th-round knockout of Beibis Mendoza in April in a fight-of-the-year candidate. In his first defense, Vasquez stopped former strawweight champ Jose Antonio Aguirre in the fourth round.

• "Countdown to Taylor-Hopkins II," HBO's half-hour special previewing the rematch between middleweight champ Jermain Taylor and former longtime champ Bernard Hopkins premiers Saturday night at approximately 11:15 ET. The documentary immediately follows the live broadcast of Mayweather-Mitchell. Taylor scored a close decision victory to lift the title from Hopkins in July. The rematch is Dec. 3 (HBO PPV) at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

• Jason Estrada (4-0, 1 KO), the 2004 U.S. Olympic super heavyweight, fights in his hometown of Providence, R.I., on Nov. 23 when he faces Jeremy Brooks (4-2, 2 KOs) in a six-rounder. Estrada, who turns 25 on Nov. 30, has been moved very slowly since turning pro after the Athens Games.

• Montreal-based super middleweight contender Otis Grant, 37, will have surgery to repair a torn abdominal muscle on Tuesday. Grant (38-2-1, 17 KOs) has fought his last two fights with the injury, including a decision victory against Donnell Wiggins last month. Grant won't be able to train for 6-8 weeks, which will push back an elimination bout with Oscar De La Hoya-promoted Librado Andrade (22-0, 16 KOs), which was supposed to take place early next year. The winner of the Grant-Andrade match will earn an eventual shot at titlist Markus Beyer of Germany.

• Junior welterweight David Diaz (29-1, 16 KOs) faces Ramazan Palyani (11-0, 5 KOs) on Dec. 10 in Rising, Ind., in a matchup of former Olympians. Diaz was on the U.S. team in 1996. Palyani, of Georgia in the former Soviet Union, won a bronze medal in the 1992 Games. On the undercard: 6-foot-4 middleweight Aaron Pryor Jr. (1-0, 1 KO), the son of Hall of Famer Aaron Pryor, will fight in a four-rounder. Pryor Jr., 27, turned pro in August.

Quotable: "This is my biggest fight. It is a big opportunity for revenge against the great warrior Erik Morales. The fight is not about the money, but for pride, the pride we carry for our countries. I will bring back a great victory to my nation. I want revenge." -- junior lightweight star Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines at Tuesday's press conference in Los Angeles to announce his Jan. 21 rematch with Morales.

Dan Rafael is the boxing writer for ESPN.com.