We spend a lot of time in the UAE thinking about Floyd Mayweather Jr.

No. Really. We do.

The strange part of that is … he is an American boxer, on the other side of the world from us in the Gulf … and he is a boxer in an age of UFC …

In a lot of ways no one in the UAE, whether citizens or expats, should spend much time thinking about Mayweather.

But upon closer examination, it becomes clearer why every story we do about Mayweather attracts quite a bit of attention — in particular, this piece by Omar Al Raisi, a one-on-one interview via telephone with Mayweather this week, just a few days before he is set to announce his opponent for a fight in Las Vegas in May.

The source of our “caring” about Floyd comes down to two ideas.

1. Manny Pacquiao.

2. Amir Kahn.

First, Manny. He is perhaps the world’s most famous Filipino, and a major boxing personality.  He isn’t what he used to be, but he was really something for about 15 years there, and in the final five years of his prime, and now into this hanging around aspect of his career, he wanted to fight Mayweather. This is a meme of Filipino sports talk. “When will Manny fight Floyd?”

It would have been a huge payday for both, a few years ago, but the deal never got done, and you can launch a one-hour discussion by asking “why?”

Anyway, we have 500,000 Filipinos in the UAE, in a total population of 8 million. And whenever Pacquiao fights, most Filipinos are paying attention. Many will do whatever it takes to watch it on TV. If The National writes a story on Manny, it gets lots of readers.

So, yes, we run a lot of Pacquiao stories, and many of them involve Floyd Mayweather, who is still not going to fight Manny.

And then there is Amir Khan.

Khan is a Briton of Pakistani descent, and we have at least 1 million Pakistanis in the UAE. Probably closer to 1.5 million. And Khan is a bit of a hero to them, or at least to those who are not so wrapped up in cricket they don’t notice anything else in the sports world.

Khan won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics, and he’s held a couple of light welterweight title belts. He is a serious boxer, and a very popular one in parts of the world where boxing doesn’t have a great hold on the imagination.

He probably is the most prominent Muslim boxer in the world, at the moment (excluding Muhammad Ali, of course, who is an ex-boxer), and he also has spent quite a bit of time in Dubai recently and at one point was trying to arrange a fight there.

And he, too, has been itching to fight Floyd Mayweather — and, too, Floyd has made clear he will fight either Marcos Maidana of Argentina, in Vegas on May 3, or Amir Khan.

Amir Khan wants to be the guy, which he made clear back in December. He also might get paid $10 million to get into the ring with Mayweather. There’s that.

So, more talk about Floyd, over here where Amir Khan is always talking up the country and saying he will do everything in his power to bring a fight to Dubai.

In the story linked, above, Floyd talks about having visited Dubai, having been impressed by its diversity, and he said he would like to come back and, sure, it’s possible he could fight someone there someday. Not likely, maybe, but “anything is possible” likely.

In the linked story above, he also has some very interesting things to say about people who want to fight him or demand to fight him. Such as Khan, who said: “The fight with Floyd Mayweather is not about money; I have made enough money and I am set for life. This fight is about pride for me.”

Floyd laughs at that sort of talk. Which is another story, too.

He told our reporter: “Any fighter wants Mayweather money and it’s always about the money. I get that the idea of being the first fighter to hand me a loss is a big motivation, but it is ridiculous to say that you wouldn’t want in on the biggest possible paycheque in your sport.

“Anyone that says that isn’t telling the truth. Period.”

So, it’s good stuff. And a lot us 12 hours ahead of Las Vegas, here in the UAE, are paying attention.