Greg Leedham and Paul Foley debate who is the better man out of contemporary boxing legends Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather
Pacquiao regularly puts it all on the line – Greg Leedham
“Unbeaten don’t mean shit!” a US radio DJ once told Floyd Mayweather Jnr in a bombastic exchange as the Grand Rapids fighter tried to justify why he was the greatest of all time.
For the man who calls himself Money, that little “0” at the end of his record is all the evidence he needs to back up his place in history.
But to my mind his obsession with staying undefeated is the very thing that has held him back from building what could have been a wonderful legacy.
His arch-rival Manny Pacquiao, who he should have fought two years ago but might actually step into the ring with next summer, may have lost three times in his career – many feel it should be four after last Saturday’s narrow win over Juan Manuel Marquez – but his CV shows he has consistently put it on the line against fighters at the top of their game.
Mayweather can’t say the same – his best nights simply don’t stand up to rigorous assessment when compared with Pacquiao’s or those of all-time legends such as Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson, who Mayweather also claims to be better than.
Floyd edged a split decision over an Oscar de la Hoya past his prime, bested a weight-drained Diego Corrales and stopped an over-the-hill Arturo Gatti in six rounds.
Many observers also feel he lost to Jose Luis Castillo earlier in his career, with the punch statistics certainly supporting such a view.
Pacquiao, on the other hand, destroyed de la Hoya and the Golden Boy promoter would retire from fighting altogether following the bout. The Filipino also ended the career of Ricky Hatton, scoring a brutal second-round knockout over the Briton who it took Mayweather 10 rounds to stop.
Later that year Pacquiao would obliterate Miguel Cotto who had hitherto only lost once – a questionable reverse to Antonio Margarito given the Mexican’s subsequent ban for packing his hand-wraps with Plaster of Paris – and Cotto has not lost since, making Pacquiao’s victory all the more impressive.
Cotto, incidentally, is someone Mayweather had ample opportunity to set up a date with but chose not to – to do so would have been to risk his unbeaten record.
Pacquiao, unlike Mayweather, understands that with great risk comes great reward. He understands that if the best continually fight the best, fight in, fight out, the chances are that they will win some and lose some.
Ali lost five times in his career, Sugar Ray lost 19 from some 200 bouts, but neither man’s losses have diminished their place in history.
Great fighters do not flit in and out of retirement like Mayweather, taking on opponents who are either past their prime or, like his last opponent Victor Ortiz, simply not at his level.
The talk is that he now wants Pacquiao, unsurprising given that many feel the Filipino is distracted by his day job as a congressman and is on the wane.
The Floyd Formula has for a long time now been to wait until someone’s on the decline, minimize the risk to his unbeaten record and then take the fight.
Sadly for Mayweather, a sublime fighter, that doesn’t make him a great, nor does it put him on a par with Pacquiao.
Mayweather is the undisputed master – Paul Foley
It has been the chief question throughout the history of boxing and one that has been furiously debated from generation to generation – just who is the sport’s top figure?
Sugar Ray Robinson still sits on the front row of the all-time list while Manny Pacquiao is, for many observers, the current pound-for-pound ruler – but I have long favoured Floyd Mayweather as boxing’s current number one.
While Manny has remarkably won world titles between flyweight and welterweight and only weighed a mere 106 pounds on his professional debut, he can’t outshine “Money” as one who almost perfectly demonstrates the art of pugilism, namely “to hit and not get hit.”
Mayweather is often painted as the villain and prefers to box in classic text book manner, using sharp reflexes as the foundation for a superb defence that has seldom seen him caught with any meaningful punches throughout his career.
Operating largely off the back foot as a brilliant counter-puncher, he thrives against a rival who comes to fight and asserts the lead while he is content to pick him off with sublime accuracy.
After turning professional in 1996 on the back of an Olympic bronze medal at featherweight it took less than two years and only 18 fights for Mayweather to grab his first world crown, when he halted Genaro Hernadez in eight one-sided rounds. That first world title victory set a consistent precedent where Mayweather not only wins but in most cases completely outclasses and nullifies both champion and challenger alike.
No-one has even come close to beating Mayweather – who seldom loses a round – while Pacquiao has suffered three defeats and been knocked out twice.
Critics of the self-proclaimed greatest suggest his 42-fight unbeaten record is largely down to carefully selecting opponents who won’t greatly threaten him. But, as he has done on several occasions, Mayweather gave away height, reach and weight when facing the late, highly dangerous and undefeated IBF super featherweight champion Diego Corrales. He still dominated throughout, flooring Corrales five times before his corner threw in the towel.
Corrales and all of Mayweather’s opponents, have found a common and unsolvable problem in that you can’t beat a man you can’t hit. It’s no great surprise that Mayweather has won world crowns between super-featherweight and light-middleweight, as well as successfully competing in 19 world title fights. Would Pacquiao be the first man to crack it?
While he would perhaps be Mayweather’s biggest test I still think his style would be tailor-made for Mayweather and that Pacquiao would become immensely frustrated by missing an incredibly elusive target. Furthermore Floyd would then counter and score with rapid frequency, emphatically proving he is boxing’s supreme operator.
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