Boxing: Mayweather vows to knock out Pacquiao

Floyd Mayweather Jr has promised to knock Manny Pacquiao out when boxing's biggest stars clash next year.

Unbeaten American Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) and Philippines hero Pacquiao (50-3, 38 KOs) are set to meet in 2010, subject to the fighters finalising contracts for a March 13 welterweight clash at a venue to be decided.

Mayweather, 32, made his bold prediction for the potential match-up while appearing on HBO Television's Joe Buck Live chat show on Tuesday night.

"Pacquiao's a good fighter but I've been around the sport a long time and I've dominated boxing for around 15 years now. No-one has defeated me yet so we'll have to see," Mayweather said.

"The thing is, I don't want the fans to be really shocked by what will happen when we do happen to meet up because it's not going to be anything new - he's been knocked out before and he's taken losses.

"I'll be victorious, you can believe it."

The Las Vegas-based Mayweather also revealed the huge sums of money he gambles on National Football League games in the Nevada city's casinos, telling Buck: "I lost big this weekend, lost huge.

"Two weeks ago I won like a million (dollars), that was across a week of games, Monday night, Sunday and Thursday.

"I didn't lose a million but I lost a couple of hundred thousand," Mayweather added, explaining that he lost the money on the New England Patriots, who lost to the Miami Dolphins, and then on Drew Brees, quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, who scraped a win against the unfancied Washington Redskins.

"Then I tried to get some 'get back' and lost some more money on Brett Favre (of the Minnesota Vikings)."

Mayweather also weighed in on the ongoing revelations about Tiger Woods' personal life, saying: "I love Tiger Woods, he's only human and everybody makes mistakes and I'm going to support him and stand behind him.

"A month ago everyone was saying he's the best golfer ever and now they're saying he's the worst man on earth, but I still love Tiger Woods."

Also on the show, former New York Giants star Michael Strahan, a Super Bowl winner in 2008 who went through a high-profile divorce proceeding two years previously, said playing golf was the best medicine for Woods to take.

"I don't think it has anything to do with the sport. It's the same on a football field or in a boxing ring or playing golf, when you're playing that's probably the only peace you're going to have," Strahan said before joking: "So for him to take off the season could be the worst thing because he might have to actually stay at home all the time and answer questions.

"If that was me I'd be saying 'Baby, from here on in I'm going to be playing every tournament out'. Forget about the big ones, I'd be out there playing the 'Ritz Cracker Open'."