?Mayweather?s next fight after defeating Baldomir was a high-profile, low action producing cash cow mega bout against Oscar De La Hoya that was competed in oops, the light middleweight division.?? All this and the return of ‘Through My Eyes’ in the most recent edition of Ringside With Raymundo!
Thursday, April 22, 2010, 2:00 P.M. PT:
“So without further ado, let me introduce to you the greatest boxer of all time, Floyd Mayweather Jr.!” ?Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions CEO
This announcement was made nine days prior to the May 1 Mosley/Mayweather showdown at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, on a media conference call to both the national and international media outlets.
It rubbed some of the media the wrong way, just as had Mayweather’s sentiments regarding his greatness on the most recent episode of Mosley/Mayweather 24/7, in which the boxer placed his name above two of the highest regarded boxers in fistic history.
“Sugar Ray Robinson was a great fighter. Floyd Mayweather is the greatest. Muhammad Ali was a great fighter. Floyd Mayweather is the greatest.”
On the call, where Mayweather got the unexpected G.O.A.T. introduction from his promoter’s CEO, “Money” fielded question after question of if he truly believed himself to be the greatest of all time, and one by one, writer after writer asked, and Mayweather nor any of his cohorts backed off of the belief that Mayweather was indeed the best in a rich, over one hundred year history of the sport.
These inherent insinuations of Mayweather’s all-time ranking served both from the mouth of his promoter as well as himself, held a specific agenda to them: sell tickets.
Sell tickets he did, as 11,000 were in the Grand Garden Arena, and nearly the same amount of fans were in a closed circuit room in the casino, and over one million homes purchased the pay per view to witness Mayweather’s lopsided twelve round drubbing over Sugar Shane Mosley.
Yet does Golden Boy Promotions and Team Mayweather still believe that their fighter has the highest ranking of them all, even after his impressive performance on May 1?
Regardless of if they do or not, it is the opinion of this writer that Floyd Mayweather is not the greatest of all time.
In fact, he won’t ever be.
Mayweather’s opportunity to climb in the ring and show his critics with his fists that he would be the greatest was missed in 2005.
After over eleven years as a professional boxer, it was five years prior to present times when Mayweather opted out of the light welterweight class and into the hot bed region of welterweight. It could be conceded that Mayweather fought the still dangerous Zab Judah and the linear champion, (if you believe in alphabet titles) Carlos Baldomir, and those bouts seemed reasonable and justifiable as Mayweather’s introduction fights in his new division.
It was the fights that didn’t happen in the following years that will prove to be Mayweather’s folly; his Achilles heel; his kryptonite.
Mayweather’s next fight after defeating Baldomir was a high-profile, although low action producing cash cow mega bout against Oscar De La Hoya that was competed in oops, the light middleweight division. Mayweather weighed 150 and DLH tipped the scales at 154.
Now this fight served as the highest grossing boxing match in the sports history, and was of course a move that had to be made my Mayweather, duh? (The duh comes from Mayweather on an episode of 24/7 where he responds to Mosley stating that Mayweather only fights for money. “Duh, I’m a prizefighter, I fight for a prize!”
Mayweather would go on to fight light welterweight Ricky Hatton, and in June 2008, Floyd Mayweather announced his retirement from the sport of boxing. It was an ill times retirement, because in this same time frame, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito were engaging in Hagler/Hearns/Leonard/Duran-type welterweight round robin that erased undefeated records, constantly moved names up and down and off of top ten pound for pound lists and provided quality fights and stellar stoppage victories.
In this duration, Mayweather had an opportunity to take out his fellow welterweights Rome-style, yet neglected to; not at the expense of his finances, but of his legacy as a top fighter.
In his absence, another great fighter made his ascension into Mayweather’s division.
Manny Pacquiao beat Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey in succession in what is probably the most impressive four fight debut for a career featherweight to the welterweight division.
A fight against Pacquiao looms for Floyd Mayweather barring successful drug testing negotiations, yet it’s my belief that even a win over Pacquiao, no matter how impressive, still wouldn’t catapult Mayweather to ?all time greatest’ status due to his failure to fight quality opponents in his previous five years in the welterweight division.
It’s too little, too late for Mayweather to prove in the ring that he is the greatest of all time.
And he never will?
THROUGH MY EYES
Man, this 2010 edition of Friday Night Fights just keeps delivering! If quality fights such as these keep getting made, perhaps this will be FNF’s best year ever, and perhaps will bring back memories to the die harder’s of USA’s Tuesday night fights. That’s setting the bar a little high, though? Super Zab Judah co-signed with promotional company Main Events. I believe it to be a good move, as Judah should still have enough left in the tank to give the young light welterweights a scare and run for their alphabet titles. Plus, we all know we love the ?re-invention’ storylines in boxing? It was a Vasquez/Marquez weekend last week, and it was great to see the Trilogy documentary on the rivalry. I spied myself and Igor Frank in Marquez’s corner at the end of the 11th round of the third fight. That was the best fight I have ever seen with these two years. A lot has been said about if the fourth fight should have happened, but the plain truth of it is, as long as both Vasquez and Marquez had something left in the tank, it was bound to have to happen? hey, no worries if ?Bloodgate’ doesn’t get solved between Pac and May. Just focus your attention on the Super Six, the light welterweight and featherweight divisions and call me in the morning? and if you don’t want a ?tequila-like’ hangover like I did last weekend, don’t even read about the IBF’s latest follies? I’m really excited for Yuri Foreman/Miguel Cotto. I am a lifetime Yankees fan, and it’s awesome that they are having a fight in the new stadium. Let’s hope there’s more fights to come in baseball stadiums?
