Before I start please don’t label me as a Pacquiao fan boy. I’m not. Pacquiao will get similar treatment when it comes time for him to meet Timothy Bradley next month but for now it’s Mayweather’s turn and some of what I have to say is going to upset his supporters.
Floyd Mayweather jr is not yet a legend of boxing. As of now he is an extremely talented fighter who is missing the defining moments needed in order to cross that bridge.
As of now, Mayweather is one of the best of his era, which isn’t enough to place him with the immortals of the sport like Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran (just to name a few).
Those men not only dominated their respective weight divisions, they had defining fights in their careers that added to their accomplishments.
Ray Robinson dominated everyone at welterweight level before moving up out of his natural weight class and dethroning middleweight champion Jake LaMotta in one of the more violent fights in boxing history.
Fighting well past his prime, Robinson won the middleweight title five times, coming from behind to knockout Gene Fullmer and Randy Turpin and a winning gruelling 15 round war with Carmen Basilio.
The Mayweather fans will be quick to point out that Robinson had to lose the title five times in order to win it back while Floyd is yet to be defeated. To that I say we’ll see how perfect Mayweather’s record would look if he had had more than 42 professional fights.
Robinson lost just one of his first 130 fights.
“Homicide Hank” Henry Armstrong was the first man to hold world titles in three weight divisions simultaneously, in 1938 he won the world welterweight and lightweight championships to go with the featherweight championship he had won the previous year.
Mayweather fans would be quick to point out that “Money” is an eight-time, four weight division world champion and while that is true everything is relative. In boxing today there are four world titles in each of the 17 weight divisions.
In Armstrong’s day there were eight weight divisions, and he was the undisputed champion in three of them at the one time. Not to mention there were a lot more active professional fighters in the 1930s then there are today.
Mayweather’s achievements in comparison to Armstrong’s is like being in the top 20 in two weight divisions.
Roberto Duran ruled the lightweight division with an iron fist during the 1970’s, defending his title 12 times before vacating the title to pursue the welterweight championship and big money fights. His defining moment came when he defeated Olympic champion Ray Leonard to take Ray’s welterweight title.
Duran would go on to also win junior middleweight and middleweight titles in the later stages of his career, upsetting two dangerous, young up and coming champions in highly memorable fights. Duran also challenged Marvin Hagler for the undisputed middleweight championship, being the only man to last the 15 rounds with Hagler during his reign.
Again, Mayweather fans would be quick to point out that Floyd dominated the junior lightweight division before winning titles at lightweight, junior welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight. The thing with Floyd is again not only the number of titles, but the fact that Floyd would pick and choose the “champion” (I prefer the term titlist) he fought and then never stuck around to see off all challengers in that respective weight class. He took Jose Luis Castillo’s WBC lightweight title, then moved up to the 140lb limit before making any meaningful defences at that weight.
Mayweather then picked the weaker of the junior welterweight champions in Arturo Gatti and without hanging around for the likes of Ricky Hatton (the real champion at that weight at that particular time) or Miguel Cotto, he jumped up again to welterweight and took on Zab Judah for the IBF title. Now, this sounds fine, but Judah had just been defeated by Carlos Baldomir in his previous fight. To his credit, Mayweather took on Baldomir and beat him easily but this was hardly a defining moment in his career.
Baldomir was not in Mayweather’s league and instead of making a statement that he was the best welterweight in the world, Floyd took zero risks and bored the audience for 12 rounds.
Then instead of fighting the dangerous contenders at welterweight like Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito, he again jumped up in weight to face Oscar De La Hoya in what was a massive fight. However, let’s call a spade a spade: Oscar by this stage was a part time boxer, competing once a year with mixed results.
After winning a close decision over ‘the Golden Boy’, Mayweather again moved down in weight and this time faced Hatton out of his natural weight class. After a brief retirement, he took on Manny Pacquiao’s nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez, a natural lightweight (if that) at what was the agreed weight of 141lbs. Mayweather took any meaningfulness out of this fight by not making the agreed weight division against a man who was already two weight divisions smaller than him, and then proceeded to again take zero risks against a smaller, slower man by opting to win on points.
Next up was Shane Mosley, a fighter a good few years out of his prime coming off the longest layoff of his career. Again, Mosley didn’t have the legs to last 12 rounds with Mayweather but instead of making the statement and taking “Sugar Shane” out, Mayweather took zero risks and won on points. Throw in the Victor Ortiz mismatch from last year and I think my point is made. Mayweather picks and chooses his achievements and while defeating these men is an achievement, he often fights guys years after the fight should have been made.
When he does fight he doesn’t win the fights in any sort of memorable fashion like the greats of the past have done.
Enter Miguel Cotto. Cotto is the most dangerous opponent Mayweather has faced. He’s still in his prime, he’s got a good size advantage and the style match-up on paper suits the Puerto Rican. This is the kind of dangerous fight that a great fighter takes.
After avenging the first loss of his career in his last fight, Cotto only has the loss to Pacquiao on his record and that fight was fought at Pacquiao’s weight division with Cotto having to get below the normal limit in order for the fight to be made. Mayweather on the other hand is fighting Cotto at his current natural weight limit of junior middleweight.
A convincing and dramatic win would go a long way to actually justifying Mayweather’s claims that he is an all-time great.
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