Floyd Mayweather: TBE?

In the wee hours of Sunday morning future hall of famer Floyd Mayweather Jr. cemented his place in amongst the boxing immortals. His 49^th consecutive victory against Andre Berto in the MGM Grand, Las Vegas saw him equal Rocky Marciano’s longest undefeated professional record. This subsequently was followed by Mayweather announcing his retirement from the sport of boxing and immediate debate over he is really, as he self-proclaims The Best Ever.

Let us put my personal opinions aside for the moment, and take time to understand the journey. In order to do this we have to rewind back to The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The Olympics have been the breeding ground for a number of American future stars of the sport for example; Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker and Meldrick Taylor all gold medallists in 1984; Sugar Ray Leonard was the imminent star from 1976 in Montreal and most notably Cassius Clay.

There is no better platform to potential stardom than an Olympics on home turf, and Floyd Mayweather Jr was supposed to be a guaranteed gold medalist in the Featherweight division. Unfortunately the outcome of what happened in the summer of 1996 probably served Mayweather more of a lesson long term than the Gold medal ever would have. What has openly been described as the biggest travesty in the history of Olympic Boxing saw Floyd’s hopes dashed in the semi-final.

The class of 1996 spawned no Gold medals and Floyd aside only Antonio Tarver and Fernando Vargas looked like making the step up to the professional ranks. The transition to professional ranks was a smooth yet relenting path for Floyd, promoted by Bob Arum’s Top Rank machine he quickly catapulted his way up the super featherweight rankings, and within 2 years had won the WBC belt held by the late Genaro Hernandez. 

In the post-fight interview Floyd took a moment to pay homage to a few of his deceased opponents, Genaro Hernandez, Arturo Gatti and of course Diego Corrales. I feel this was poignant because he recognised how his fights with each of these men propelled him to the next level. His 2001 bout with an undefeated Diego Corrales probably would best demonstrate this.

At that time Diego Corrales was one of the most feared little men in boxing with a devastating KO record of 27 KO from his 33 fights, and at 23 years of age was definitely at the peak of his powers. Despite a considerable height and reach advantage over Mayweather what happened on that night in Nevada would reverberate around the boxing world. Mayweather in one of his most flawless performances stopped Corrales in the 10th after putting him on the canvas 5 times throughout the fight. Not only was it one of his most dominating offensive displays but we saw him establish what he would later in his career become renowned for. On the night boxing analyst and commentator Jim Lampley compared Floyd’s performance to that of another defensive wizard Pernell Whitaker. Diego Corrales by CompuBox stats landed on averaged no more than 9 punches per round, and it was the only time a boxer has landed a single digit average per round since the method of punch tracking had been introduced.

Now let’s not get this twisted I am not about to systematically analyse Floyd’s career fight for fight. I just wanted to take an in depth look at him as a Boxer. The question over his legacy if I’m honest will always confuse me. As a boxing purist I find it difficult to overlook his credentials as one of the best fighters ever. Most casual fans will look at him during the final furlong of his 20 year career and the Pay per View run with Showtime/CBS, and assume that Floyd’s style was boring and lacking enough entertainment to warrant his placing in the upper echelons of boxing.

So if they don’t admire his more cautious and studious approach to the art then why has he continued to post record numbers on the Box Office? Some will stand by the notion that they are waiting for him to show a chink in his normally impenetrable armoury and get caught similarly like he did against Shane Mosely and perhaps show the true characteristics of a champion in standing and trading, digging deep in the trenches.

Despite being one of the most easily recognised faces in Sport, it is no secret that Floyd is more hated than loved. His flamboyance and opulent lifestyle come in for much criticism, but how can we be mad at how somebody else chooses to spend money, that took their sweat, blood and tears to earn. Point to his earlier years in the sport Floyd has always been relatively respectful of his opponents; he is meticulous in his preparations. His catchphrase “Hard work and Dedication” embodies what he is all about!

Say what you want about his out of the ring discretions and brushes with the law, but this is somebody from a fighting family that has dedicated their life to honing his craft and further establishing his family name. When you think of Mayweather most will think of his brass acts to help promote his fights and how he appears to laud his riches over us the fans, however as owner of his own promotion company this is his job. He has to sell his fights to us the public. Yes he could endear and ingratiate himself in the hearts of people by being less “obnoxious” at times, but self-belief is part of what has kept at the top for all these years. Furthermore I have not heard anybody ever complain about Muhammad Ali’s antics outside of the ring.

So we’ve taken a glance at his two of the major contributing factors that people most discuss when looking at his placing in boxing history. I want to also place a focus on what he has done as a Promoter because this is extremely underrated in regards to the overall picture and something that people rarely discuss.

The sensationalism of Boxing was compounded in a great era from the sport in the mid 80’s to the early 90’s. We were blessed with super fights up and down the weight classes; Duran, Hagler, Hearns and Leonard’s rivalry will forever be talked about by boxing fans. We then had the opportunity to see Mike Tyson blow up, tearing his way through everything in sight. Even the UK had a decent crop of exciting fighters with Watson, Benn, Eubanks and Collins. Unfortunately these fight stars were fading if not finished by the turn of the millennium and overall Boxing paid a heavy price. Pay per view numbers were struggling in comparison to ten years earlier, and the quality of Boxing on terrestrial TV was damn near non-existent. The general public were taking more of an interest in Mixed Martial Arts, UFC in particular.

Despite this The Mayweather-De La Hoya bout set the record for most PPV buys for a boxing match with 2.7 million PPV purchases, breaking the previous record of 1.95 million for Holyfield vs Tyson 2. In addition to approximately $120 million in revenue being generated by the PPV, another record. Floyd followed that up with a convincing KO victory against the unbeaten Ricky Hatton and another big Box Office, and then seemingly rode off into the sunset and leaving the Boxing world devoid of a face, to lead the way. 

Whilst in retirement Manny Pacquiao was the only person coming close to Floyd in regards to PPV numbers. He was also destroying some of Floyd’s opponents in a more devastating fashion than the pretty boy. KO victories against Hatton and De La Hoya saw fans clambering for Floyd to come out of retirement and fight The Pacman.

The politics behind boxing especially the network/promoter battles have always played a key part in us not being able to see some of the fights that we as fans would have liked to have seen. Golden Boy Promotions held a monopoly over a lot of the games top fighters. The company’s affiliation with HBO the premier broadcaster of Boxing for the past decade meant that a lot of top Boxing cards and bigger PPV events would only host other Golden Boy fighters. Other networks found it difficult to get a piece of the pie CBS/Showtime principally. The tug of war between the two networks to be the major player was an arduous one, and only one man could tip the scales.

Enter Floyd Money Mayweather, fresh off a semi-retirement from the sport. He started exactly where he left off, defeating opponents effortlessly and generating big numbers on a consistent basis. The moniker “Money Mayweather” had come to full fruition and Floyd definitely reaffirmed this in 2013. Floyd would end his long association with HBO and sign a lucrative six fight deal with rival company Showtime. People often discuss how Floyd chooses to spend his money but never give him credit for his business acumen.

Back in 2006 Floyd was guaranteed his biggest purse ($8m) against Antonio Margarito from then Promoter Bob Arum owner of Top Rank. Floyd turned this deal down because he believed that a fight against De La Hoya would be more financially beneficial. Top Rank didn’t feel Floyd was worth the $20m he was demanding for the fight against De La Hoya, subsequently leading to Floyd buying himself out of his contract for $750,000. This move in time would change the landscape of boxing, in favour of the fighter as opposed to the promoters.

Fast forward to 2015 and we saw a historical match-up between Mayweather and Pacquiao that not only would break PPV records but generate close to $400m most of which Floyd would walk away with, being his own promoter. The likes of Don King and Bob Arum for years have been accused of not paying the fighter under their rosters correctly. Mike Tyson stands out as an example of a man who made over $300m from the sport but less than 15 years later would file for bankruptcy. The tale of the fighter who has to carry on boxing way past their prime, to service a lifestyle that their fight purses would realistically not measure up to is one often told. The likes of Floyd and De La Hoya have been pioneers that have shown another way of operating. Personally this for me is one of the factors to be considered in Floyd’s testimony. Not to mention him being the executive producer of the highly popular All Access series, in which we see what competitors are doing, thinking and feeling in the weeks leading up to a bout.

Leaving the game on your own terms is something that should be celebrated, regardless! History is rarely made in a sport like boxing, the likelihood of us seeing another Boxer eclipse this record of 49-0, and come out healthy and wealthy too…. UNLIKELY.

You can say Floyd picked and chose his fights, probably but isn’t that the job of your promoters and managers. Once you get to the top the task is to stay at the top. Did fighting a bigger rangy Antonio Margarito make sense for a star still on the rise; with other more rewarding fights out there make sense? No. Did Floyd and Manny clash at their peaks? Definitely not. What we do know is that Floyd Mayweather Jr.  fought 26 world champions across 5 weight classes, won 12 world titles and was a lineal champion across 4 weight classes, and was a  two time RING magazine fighter of the year, Those are the facts!

I am not going to give my definitive opinion on whether he is the best ever there are a lot of names to consider; Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Willie Pep, Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Alexis Arguello, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson, Roy Jones just to name a few, but Floyd Mayweather Jr is definitely in the conversation.