Floyd Mayweather Jr: G.O.A.T.?

An edition of The Knockout Boxing Magazine in 1999 posed one simple question. Who is the future of boxing?

Two fighters appeared on the front page of that September edition and boxing fans have been waiting ever since to see who really is the best of the best, the real pound for pound king.

This fight is about more than determining who the best in the sport is right now. They are fighting for respect, a chance to cement their legacies in the world of boxing.

But for one fighter in particular it is a chance to finally shut all his critics and doubters up. A chance to once again show the world, as he has always told us, that he is the best ever.

I am talking about Floyd Mayweather Junior.

February 24, 1977 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, saw the next boxing star enter the world.

Blessed with pure God given talent, inheriting his father’s ability to trash talk and an unrelenting desire to become number one, this man had truly been given all the ingredients to become one of the world’s greatest ever boxers.

No boxer divides opinion quite like this man, none have caused as much controversy in the build up to fights, with the exception of the great Muhammad Ali.

An Olympic medal holder, six time champion in five different divisions, part of the highest grossing pay-per-view fights in the history of boxing. Victories over the likes of Arturo Gatti, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Jose Luis Castillo, Diego Corrales and Juan Manuel Marques would surely be enough to cement any boxers place in the history of the sport?

But as I said, no-one divides boxing fans quite like Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather.

Some do not like him because of the trash talking, some because they believe he ducks and dodges the supposed ‘tougher’ fights and some because they feel his style is boring.

Yet others love the cockiness, respect his defensive technique and admire the fact he is a pure, precision punching boxer.

As I said, a debate about Floyd could rage on for a while.

But when it comes to picking one of the great pure boxers, there is no doubt; Mayweather will go down as one of, if not the greatest pure boxers in the history of this noble sport.

And with his biggest and toughest fight to date just around the corner, Mayweather will at last have a chance to really cement himself as one of boxing’s all time greats.

Why you may ask? Simple.

Not many boxers’ have won all their fights, but that is not the only reason for why Floyd can be considered great.

Ali, Duran and Sugar Ray Robinson all lost fights, but they were in that category of greatest fighters in which Mayweather surely now sits.

Mayweather is one of the greatest boxers simply because there have not been many boxers who have dominated, out thought and out boxed their opponents like Mayweather. He made very good fighters look strictly average when they stepped into the ring with him.

Mayweather once said:

“You have to realize that most of these guys get in there and fight on heart. I fight with smarts. There is no fighter that is smarter than me. Most of these fighters are ABC, 1-2-3. I am like 4-5-6 levels above them, that’s why I’m able to beat them.”

And with his long list of cocky and brash statements, I doubt he has spoken truer words.

Fighters such as the late Arturo Gatti and Diego Corrales, as well as Ricky Hatton all fought on mainly heart, and all have one thing in common.

They all lost and were brutally exposed by Floyd Mayweather.

Mayweather fought with not only heart, but smarts as well. He saw how these fighters attempted to win the fight and he built a strategy to beat them on the spot, as Mayweather famously never watches tapes of his opponents. None of the three fights, in fact, even lasted the distance.

But he does not seem to have the respect he undoubtedly warrants from certain circles of the boxing community, because many feel that his style always has been, and always will be, too defensive.

Roger Mayweather, before the fight with Corrales, said:

“You don’t win fights by being defensive. You win through precision punching.”

That is what Mayweather does. Yes he has an excellent defensive style, but just because he does not have the knockout record of a Tyson, or a certain Filipino boxer, then he is labelled as “boring” and “a runner”.

So maybe Mayweather does not have that knockout power, but he has still 25 knockouts from 40 fights. And as I said, he stopped an undefeated Hatton, while the late Corrales and Gatti were forced to retire by their respective corners. These are three of the toughest men to ever get into boxing and Mayweather stopped them all.

Not bad for a so called defensive boxer, eh?

Yet still no universal respect for a man who has dealt with his own share of personal drama during his early career. His well documented “beef” with his father, Floyd Mayweather Senior, looks to be finally over, but there was a time when it seemed as though father and son would never be able to co-exist in the boxing world.

Mayweather Senior was still in prison when Mayweather Junior had his first professional fight back in 1996, with Uncle Roger taking over as trainer. But when Mayweather Senior was released from prison and took over as trainer and manager, things began to take their toll.

In early 2000, things came to a head and Mayweather Jr fired his father as manager and trainer, with Uncle Roger returning to his trainer role. Dealing with that kind of internal feud, but staying focused enough to win all your fights takes some doing.

Not many boxers walking this earth could deal with all the in-house fighting, and still perform in the ring, but Floyd Jr prevailed and established himself as one of the greatest boxers to ever step through the ropes.

With his boxing I.Q. and ability never in doubt, Mayweather has also become more than just your regular boxer. He has become an entertainer and an entrepreneur.

“Money” Mayweather, as he likes to be called, has transcended the sport to becoming one of the most recognisable boxers to walk this earth. It is he who provides the drama to HBO’s 24/7 programme, which see’s the station follow boxers in the build up to major fights, and has now become a permanent fixture on the TV schedule prior to almost every major bout.

But whenever Mayweather is involved, the ratings soar. His trash-talking of opponents such as De La Hoya, Hatton and now Mosley have helped to build the anticipation for the fight. This is one reason a section of the boxing public tend to turn away from Mayweather, but as he says it helps sell the fights, attracting the casual fans.

He has his own record company, clothing and promotional company. He is his own man.

But his boxing ability gave him the platform to do this and that is something he has never forgotten. For all the talk that this man fights for ‘just’ a cheque is a smoke screen. He loves the sport of boxing; no-one would put themselves through the gruelling training regime for ‘just’ a cheque, after all?

His fight with “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya is where he first gained the world wide audience his talent deserved. Yes he had fought in big fights before, but this was different. The fight broke all records for pay-per-view buys.

Mayweather won, on what some deemed a controversial, split decision.

The stats tell a different story.

Mayweather landed 43% of his punches compared to De La Hoya’s 21%, whilst he landed a massive 57% of his power punches compared to De La Hoya’s 24%. Once again, this proves Mayweather isn’t a “runner” he is however, one of the best precision punchers in boxing. Something that shouldn’t be forgotten is that De La Hoya entered the bigger man that night but nothing was said. Mayweather has entered a few of his previous fights as the bigger man and it is seen as a bad thing.

This fight proved beyond any doubt that Mayweather is the best boxer of his era. De La Hoya was considered the best boxer of a generation before the fight with Mayweather, and was soundly beaten. That fight was considered Mayweather’s biggest challenge, and to me, he passed it with flying colours. The stats prove it, and of those there can be no argument.

Mayweather also showed the one thing his detractors like to say that he lacks, the true heart of a great fighter.

He gave everything to De La Hoya for that fight; he let De La Hoya pick the ring size and the gloves. He was the smaller man on the night and he came up trumps. He showed the true heart of a champion.

Yet the universal respect did not come.

Even after beating an undefeated Hatton and the tough Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez, more respect was given to Manny Pacquiao for beating both. There is no doubt Pacquiao should be praised for disposing of Hatton and De La Hoya in the manner he did, but Mayweather did it first. There is a difference in defeating an undefeated fighter for the first time and no real boxing fan can truly say that De La Hoya was ready for that fight.

The fight against Shane Mosley will finally give Floyd the chance to shut his critics up. It is definitely his toughest fight. No-one in the welterweight division can match him for speed, but Mosley will run him closer than anyone has done previously.

But 11 years on from that September publication of The Knockout Boxing Magazine, fans will finally get the chance to see who the best fighter of this era really is because make no mistake about it, these are the best two boxers walking the planet right now.

Here is Mayweather’s chance to cement himself as the greatest boxer of his generation and prove to boxing fans who the best really is.

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