Standards.
We all have them.
Some lower than others, and then some that are impossibly high.
Regardless as to whether or not you adhere to them or not- you will be judged by critics and skeptics alike. They will whisper that you are either not as good as some might think, or worse than suspected. For Floyd Mayweather, all of the above matters, for he is prone to opinion with an ever increasingly thinner skin as evidenced by his last fight with Marcos Maidana.
And for the record, opinion is why you’ll see an epic rematch tonight.
I was going through my catalog of articles and was curious to find out just how many articles I’ve written about Floyd among the 250 or so I’ve produced. Turns out that this is the 47th.
I don’t know exactly what the hell that means, but something has to give.
T@z
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Its one thing to be the standard by which others are measured, but then its another thing to actually tell people you are. This is what makes Floyd unique in all of sports, but especially in Boxing.
When Ali told us he was “The Greatest”, it was on the heels of defeating a Sonny Liston no one thought he could beat with a style no one had ever seen. He then followed that up with a historic stand-off against the United States while eating Bean Pies and attempting to read Nation of Islam “Final Calls” while being dyslectic.
He faced Floyd’s version of Manny Pacquiao in Joe Frazier after a forced 3 year exile. He did this after beating a tough bastard in Jerry Quarry. What I’m getting at, is he told us who he was every step of the way while making sure he did something special to prove it each and every time.
“TBE”, aka “The Best Ever” (or Floyd, as he calls himself) has a lot to prove, but it really goes far beyond Marcos Maidana. Listening to him and his management team pontificate, gripe, tweet stupid sh*t about respect and so forth while pandering for the media to lay off him on the eve of this rematch is laughable.
Respect is earned Floyd – but so too is disrespect.
In this article written right after the weigh in of the first fight, an article that Freddie Roach may have read, I concluded that Floyd would not be as mobile as he’d appeared in the past. In fact, it was my observation that Floyd had lost a fair amount of dexterity in his legs and would be forced to fight in close quarters with a man who would have no regard for him.
You saw the fight.
The only reason Saul Canelo Alvarez wasn’t able to expose this is because to fight like Maidana is contrary to his nature and he’s inclined counterpunch a lot. He allowed Floyd to look as good as he did by allowing him the space and time he wanted to operate.
Maidana did not do this and he won’t do it tonight either. Everything I’ve seen and observed tells me that this fight will be better than the first, produce more drama, be far more difficult and dangerous for Floyd than the first encounter, and produce a dramatic ending.
I saw Floyd stretching and taking up Yoga to gain an edge while surrounded by a bevy of bountiful booty in the premier of Showtime’s “All Access” promo. He would have been better off talking to Yoda, who could’ve told him about his fear and what it leads to.
My little green friend tells us that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and that hate leads to suffering. He’ll suffer a great deal with Maidana tonight, because those are the very emotions that lead him to this rematch and also the same ones that have prevented him from fighting Manny Pacquiao.
He can say what he wants to you and anyone else – but he knows he has deliberately avoided Pacquiao, the same way he knows he couldn’t avoid the skeptics who derided him in victory this past May.
I wasn’t one of them because the fight went pretty much exactly as I expected. But I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, and that is, change my prediction on the outcome of a fight.
Floyd was cut, bullied, tormented, prodded and appeared more vulnerable than ever in rallying down the stretch to defeat the rampaging Argentinean. He’ll have to do the same thing again, with even less mobility, in a fight that will resemble a combination of his bouts with Ricky Hatton and Jesus Chavez from long ago.
Words – and pictures – give us great music, and that is precisely what Floyd makes in the ring better than virtually anyone alive. But fans, like the artists themselves, sometimes deny the small subtleties that separate them from being as great as they were. We are sometimes asked in ways literal to just be who we were.
But no one can.
It’ll take everything he’s got – but he’s going to give it to us (and Marcos Maidana) because he’ll have to, even if it robs him a little more of who he was. Showing the mettle and resolve of the all-time great that he is, Floyd Mayweather will dig deep in the pocket to produce a riveting and spectacular 11th round KO of a monstrous Marcos Maidana.
Now all he’ll have to do is be “TBE” like, and face Manny Pacquiao.
