There?s no doubt that Floyd Mayweather is a divisive character and whether you see him as a hero or as a villain depends on a whole lot of factors, many tied to race, class, and social status.
But let?s not go there.
And let?s not go into whether he will be remembered as a safety-first, cherry-picking huckster or as a genius ring tactician with a legitimate claim on being ?The Best Ever.?
A lot regarding Mayweather has to do with personal aesthetic and the filter through which you view the man.
Instead, let?s talk about what should be a universal positive, but, sadly, is probably what helped generate much of the media animosity aimed his way in the first place.
Floyd Mayweather is the first boxer in the history of the sport to truly succeed as his own boss.
This is a big deal in a sport like boxing.
Boxing has been built on a foundation of indentured servitude. From the days of battling Irish immigrants to the glitz and glamour of today, prizefighting has always been about rich men using poor men to get richer. It has always been ruled over by a system designed to eat through society?s poorest and most desperate with promises of fame and glory. Even in this day and age of alleged enlightenment with million dollar paydays and fighters bragging on social media about their riches, the system has hardly changed at all.
Fighters are kept solvent enough to not complain, but cash-poor enough to always be dependent on the next payday. It’s an old trick of indentured servitude. Think turn of the century coal miners, loaned money for the necessities of life against future paydays, only to find themselves in a perpetual cycle of servitude to the coal mine owner, always working to bring themselves up to zero.
The situation is not so dire in boxing, but the strategy is the same. It’s the real reason fighters hang around too long and have no recourse but to be thrown to the lions when their time is up. It?s also the reason some fighters actually retire in debt to their promoters and/or managers.
Fighters, even main stage stars, are given a fraction of what they could make or of what they were promised to receive, often only paid a portion of what should be theirs because of advances given to them to make up for a shortfall in the last paycheck. So, they fight on, always looking to the next paycheck to bring them the cash influx they need until, eventually, there are no more paychecks. Then, they are given the bum?s rush, tossed to the side with no ?real world? job skills, perhaps suffering neurological damage from years in the sport, and left to fend for themselves for the next half of their life.
Boxing?s entire system is rigged in favor of the suits who manipulate the game according to their whims.
Floyd Mayweather flipped the script on the entire boxing business structure and beat the system.
Whether he?s aware of the significance of what he?s done or not, Mayweather?s career serves as the template for every generation of fighter after him. He showed the success a fighter could have on his own, given personal resolve and a good team behind him.
It should?ve come as no surprise that, as Mayweather?s autonomy proved to be more and more successful, the attacks against his career and legacy became angrier and more aggressive. The system?led by old guard powerbrokers and their media lap dogs?lashed out at a fighter who, if successful, could be creating boxing?s version of the Underground Railroad. An independent and successful Mayweather meant that the power base of the sport could be changed?from the traditional, all-powerful promoter model to one where the fighter and his people held an equal, if not greater, amount of power.
And while Mayweather may just have been deep in the struggle to earn himself ultimate self-determination and the greater money that comes with it, to the traditionalists he represented a revolution in how boxing business is conducted and, perhaps, the first step towards turning the sport into a ?legitimate? business. This wasn?t a good thing for boxing?s 1%.
To the boxers that come after Mayweather, there will be options that were never available to Mayweather or to the other fighters before him. That?s the other legacy that needs to be mentioned when talking about the career of the five-division champ.
Love him or hate him as a boxing personality and fighter, just understand what the successful 19-year campaign of Floyd Mayweather will mean to protecting the physical and economic well-being of all future generations.
