Floyd Mayweather has never been a fighter shy to let everyone know just how good he is. And undoubtedly, he is a great fighter, possibly even the best fighter in the sport today.
In Mayweather’s mind though, he is the best that there ever was, and beating Shane Mosley has placed him back at the top of the pound for pound rankings. While the second point is debatable, to my mind there isn’t any sane fan who would group Mayweather with the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson or Muhammad Ali any time soon.
He might belong in that company some day, but he has a long way to go even with the impressive record he has.
After winning the welterweight world title, Robinson went on to fight no less than ten times the following year. Now obviously no modern fighter could come close to this unless they were either fighting very poor competition or were suicidal. Mayweather himself fights usually once or twice per year these days, and tends to look for big money fights rather than trying to enhance his legacy.
The big difference between where Mayweather is and where he wants to be though is that he isn’t actively looking for the most challenging fights he can take. Shane Mosley was the best fighter available at the time, but Mayweather has not always taken on the most difficult opposition, which is why his record doesn’t have names such as Cotto, Margarito, Williams and now Pacquiao adorning it.
Sure he might want a level playing field, and of course he needs to make money, but until he takes on these kinds of fights the furthest he can go is being one of the best of his generation, instead of one of the best of all time.
The testing issue is still the main barrier to the fight happening, but in all honesty, I don’t think Mayweather believes Pacquiao is taking anything. He has never failed a test and Mayweather has never wanted fully random testing before now. Having pursued his testing stance to the hilt though, he can no longer back down for any future fights either.
If the Pacquiao fight proves to be inoperable once again though, then Mayweather needs to take on a credible threat, not look for an easy pay day against the likes of Matty Hatton or Saul Alvarez. Paul Williams has been desperate to fight the big names for years and would accept any kind of testing Floyd wants. In all likelihood he would be at the Golden Boy offices signing the contract before Floyd could put the phone down. The same goes for Sergio Martinez and a whole host of others, Amir Khan, Tim Bradley, Antonio Margarito and many more.
Matthew Prentice, Pittsburgh: “Mayweather has always been a cherry picker, so he took one tough fight and now all of a sudden he’s been taking them all along?”
Gary Newsome, Pittsburgh: “I can’t see the Pacquiao fight getting made, and at the same time I can’t see him facing anyone like Williams or Martinez either. Maybe he will take on some of the rising light welters”
