By Byron Wallin: Floyd Mayweather Jr. is coming off yet another impressive and relatively comfortable victory over the gutsy Miguel Cotto. Despite taking a few more shots than he may be accustomed to. Mayweather’s superior speed and skills carried him to the unanimous decision victory.

However, without wanting to disrespect Cotto or his fans, it has to be mentioned that Miguel is no longer a fighter considered at the peak of his powers and most experts do not consider him to sit at the pinnacle of current elite fighters. Even in 2009 Manny Pacquiao was able to destroy him within the distance.

The Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight has been dead for the best part of two years, due to the ridiculous avoidance tactics implemented by both fighters. The final nail in its coffin was hammered in when Tim Bradley was able to controversially defeat what appeared to be a greatly deteriorated Pacquiao. It is my opinion that even if Mayweather was able to school Pacquiao, the recognition for doing so would be blunted, and boxing fans and experts would cite the clear decline in Manny as a reason for never knowing who was truly better had the two men met whilst both were operating at a higher level.

For this reason it appears to be time for Mayweather to finally put his ‘money’ where his mouth is, and be brave enough to take the biggest risk of his career in fighting Sergio Martinez. Martinez is somewhat of an unknown quantity in as much as no one is truly sure how good he really is. He has been on an astonishing run the past few years, firstly, by defeating the then undisputed middleweight champion of the World; Kelly Pavlik, before knocking cold one of the most avoided men in boxing; Paul Williams. Martinez has offered to fight at 154lb, the same weight class in which Floyd last fought against Cotto, and has also offered to take the much smaller cut of the purse. The only thing stopping this fight is Mayweather’s reluctance to take risks.

However, if Floyd takes the plunge and is able to school Martinez with his sensational boxing skills, it appears to this writer that he would truly have to be considered as an all time great and certainly the greatest boxer of his generation.