So here we go again — another Vegas super-fight involving Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather is upon us, with the action unfolding at his home from home, the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas tonight. 

This time round the pound for pound best in the world’s opponent is hard-hitting Argentinian Marcus Maidana, who handed Mayweather’s close friend and style-mimic Adrien Broner the first defeat of his pro career in his previous fight. 

Regardless it would be a near-impossible task to find a boxing writer, commentator or serious fan willing to bet against Mayweather adding to an already remarkable record of 45 wins from 45 fights with no draws on May 3.

No other fighter in the history of boxing has enjoyed the rewards, power or influence that Mayweather currently does over a sport that now seems to exist in service to his every whim and fancy. 

Mayweather chooses when and who he will fight. He decides who will fight on his undercard and he pays the opposition himself. In many ways the easiest job in the world has to be that of Richard Scheiffer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions. 

All he has to do is exactly what Mayweather tells him to do and when to do it, while in return he and the company he owns along with Oscar De La Hoya receives a large cheque.

The lifestyle enjoyed by Mayweather is just ludicrous, involving the kind of excess and conspicuous consumption that does more to advance the cause of communism than Karl Marx ever could. Mansions, more jewellery than Tiffany’s, luxury cars by the garage-load and women treated as toys rather than human beings. 

Yet it is undeniable that his dedication and commitment to his craft in the ring is total and has not weakened despite his advancing years and the massive rewards he has enjoyed up to this point. The poverty from whence he came in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is now a long and distant memory. Yet to watch him train is to watch a man possessed.

The bling and the excess is mere embroidery, you sense, concealing an unquenchable desire for true greatness as one of the outstanding exemplars of a sport which in most cases takes more than it ever gives.

Mayweather is a one off, a fighter who displays not a scintilla of the physical evidence of the 18 years he has spent in the ring as a professional. 

Absent from his features is the scar tissue that most fighters who’ve been in the game for a fraction of those years carry with pride, marking them out as warriors. 

The prospect of Marcus Maidana, who possesses undoubted venom in his punches, changing that is slim given Mayweather’s ironclad shoulder-roll defence, speed and extraordinary ring awareness. 

This is why watching Mayweather fight, regardless of the opposition, is a treat for purists of the sport. Though it is unlikely this weekend’s pay-per-view numbers will match his last outing against Saul Canelo Alvarez, which broke the record he already held from his 2007 contest against Oscar De La Hoya, they won’t be shoddy either, especially with the aforementioned Adrien Broner and Britain’s own Amir Khan fighting on the undercard.

For Khan, his contest against the aging Luis Collazo is nothing less than an audition for the only fight he really craves at this point in his career against Mayweather.

 His very public embarrassment over having been verbally assured that he and not Maidana — whom the Bolton star defeated in one of the most impressive performances of his career in 2010 — would be standing across the ring from the five division eight-belt world champion on May 3, only to be left jilted at the altar, hasn’t diminished his willingness to play ball in agreeing to appear on the main man’s undercard. 

It is the smart move given the size of the platform and exposure the former Olympic silver medallist will receive.

As for Broner, judging by his interviews and training clips for his contest against Mexico’s Carlos Molina, whom Khan faced and defeated in 2012, he appears to have ditched his second career as a rapper, reality TV star and all-round bling merchant and returned to what he does best — boxing. 

If so, the hiding he received from Maidana six months ago will not have been in vain. 

The MGM Grand in Las Vegas is yet again the setting for a Mayweather event that will generate a fortune. This is why when he finally departs the stage both the sport and Las Vegas will miss him dearly. 

As to what Mayweather will do in retirement — if the sheer volume of clothes, sunglasses, watches, cars and accessories he has accrued is anything to go by, he could always open a shopping centre.