Floyd Mayweather claims he was paid $1million just to take a phone call and open negotiations with KSI’s brother Deji.

‘TBE’ retired from professional boxing in 2017 with an unblemished 50-0 record but has continued competing in exhibition bouts deep into his forties.

Mayweather earned $1m before even lacing up his gloves to face DejiGETTY

In his fifth outing in the crossover boxing sphere, he took on YouTube star Deji in Dubai under one-and-done promoter Global Titans.

At first, Mayweather wasn’t entirely convinced by the legitimacy of the newly formed company.

But they showed their financial resolve by paying him an extortionate fee just to pick up the phone.

“They reached out to me and said ‘Floyd, we’d like you in Dubai again’, Mayweather told Fight Hype.

“The other one was supposed to be in Dubai and it got moved to Abu Dhabi, but they want me back in the UAE.

“I said ‘Let’s make it happen,’ but I also told them I won’t get on the phone unless I know the numbers, then we can talk.

“They said, ‘We’ll get you on the phone’ and they wired me $1m. So I got on the phone ASAP and said ‘What’s going on?’

“They said they wanted me to do [an exhibition] with a YouTuber, I said, ‘Yo, let’s make it happen’.

“We’re doing these exhibitions and it doesn’t matter what happens, I can get knocked out and I’m still 50-0!

“I did what I had to do when it really counted, it don’t count now.”

The American boxing continues to compete in exhibition bouts post-retirementAmanda Westcott/SHOWTIME

Mayweather went on to win the fight via sixth-round TKO and barely broke a sweat as he mercilessly clowned and taunted his overmatched foe.

Global Titans CEO Uday Singh revealed that Mayweather earned between $25m and $30m for the fight while Deji was paid just under $750,000.

However, that wasn’t the best payday of Mayweather’s exhibition boxing career – far from it.

The American boxing icon claims he pocketed $100m for his fight with content creator Logan Paul in 2021 after being given a guaranteed $10m base salary plus 50 percent of the pay-per-view shares.

Mayweather vs Paul reportedly did over one million PPV buys domestically and was a massive financial success.

Paul, the much bigger man, tipped the scales at 189.5lbs while Mayweather weighed in at 155lbs.

However, the size disparity didn’t matter with the YouTuber unable to land a clean shot on Mayweather for the entire eight-round contest, which was automatically declared a draw due to it being a non-scoring bout.