Will Mayweather Jr. Be Remembered as a Cherry Picker?

By Dave Lahr: Every fighter leaves a legacy whether good or bad and many of them wish they could do things differently if they had the chance to redo their career from scratch. In the case of Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) I wonder if some day he might want to do the same thing with his career because Mayweather’s tendency to choose easier opponents rather than the toughest ones seem to have tainted his boxing legacy and left a lasting impression on many fans of the sport when they think of Mayweather’s name.

I doubt that Mayweather really cares all that much what the more knowledgeable boxing fans think of him just as long as the casual fans are willing to pay big money to see him fight smaller opponents like Juan Manuel Marquez, Ricky Hatton and some day maybe Manny Pacquiao.

However, it’s the sport of boxing that losses out with Mayweather’s habit of hand picking (cherry-picking) opponents that he feels that are beatable to him instead of taking on tougher fighters that would push him enough to make him grow as a fighter.

After two years away from boxing after making a bundle in his bouts with Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya, it was hard to understand Mayweather’s choice of lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez as his first opponent back.

Mayweather, 32, who will be fighting Marquez on July 18th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, could have fought Shane Mosley or Miguel Cotto, both of which are huge names in the sport and who happen to fight in Mayweather’s weight class.

It isn’t as if they’re no-named fighters that the boxing public doesn’t care to see. In fact, I would venture to guess that either Cotto or Mosley is much more popular fighters than Marquez. That doesn’t seem to register with Mayweather, who claims that Marquez has a huge fan base in Mexico.

I doubt that’s true because Marquez has never caught in Mexico like Julio Cesar Chavez as far as I can tell. It probably had to do with the fact that Marquez is a counter puncher rather than a brawler like Chavez and that he’s been beaten four times in his career. Both of those factors would exclude Marquez from being a huge star in Mexico you would think.

It’s probably wishful thinking on Mayweather’s partner to see Marquez as a big star in Mexico, because it makes Floyd look better for having selected him as his opponent. However, I do think that Marquez can become a huge star in Mexico if he beats Mayweather, but as of now Marquez probably doesn’t have the fan base that Cotto or Mosley have.

This is why it seems that Mayweather once again is looking for a fighter that he feels he can beat without having to risk losing his ‘0’ on his unbeaten record. Like a lot of fighters nowadays that build up an unbeaten record, once they get to a certain level of achievement they begin to become gun shy, afraid of taking on dangerous opponents in order to preserve their perfect record for as long as possible.

In some cases, they abandon their championship belts altogether as they’re career is morphed into pure cherry-picking of either big named opponents from different weight classes or beatable faded ones. At this point, they’re more like exhibition fighters rather than actual contenders or champions.

It’s really sad, because the public gets ripped off because in a lot of cases these fighters probably aren’t even the top fighters in their weight class anymore even though the ignorant boxing public often perceive them to be. I think this is the case with Mayweather.

At one point he was considered to be the best welterweight in the division, but if he were to fight Paul Williams, Mosley or Cotto right now, I see him losing to all three of them. Mayweather probably never will fight them, though, and that’s why I think it will eventually leave a lasting mark on his legacy.

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