Floyd’s decline revisited

By Nationvegas - 01/08/2013 - Comments

cotto3e3432By Rusty Nate: It’s become apparent over many months that the majority of the fans who post comments on this site and others are clearly miss-understanding the meaning of most articles they are reading.

An example would be a recent Mayweather related article mentioning his decline. Now I knew way in advance that simply writing an article about Mayweather (or Pacquiao for that matter) is impossible to do with out getting blasted by some one no matter how neutral the point of view may be.

By even suggesting that Mayweather had declined in abilities over the years spawned a wrath from his fans with comments such as……

“What decline!!”

“Mayweather has just decided to fight toe to toe these days, that’s why Cotto caught him with punches!!”.

“Mayweather will never lose”

“The writer is bitter about a previous article so decided to get his own back”

Some of the comments do make me smile to myself when I read them because I honestly do not understand what voices pop into some fans heads when they are reading a perfectly bias free article.

Of the above comments I think “What Decline” was the most surprising to hear and yet the most frequently posted. Seriously guys, has there been any fighter or sportsmen in history that has biologically defied the test of time and getting older?  

I stand by the point of view that Mayweather has declined in recent fights in the same way that Pacquiao has declined, Cotto has declined, Vitali Klitchko has declined, Roy Jones did, Bernard Hopkins did. The fact is that there is no escaping age catching you in any sport, there are NO EXCEPTIONS!

Take Mayweather’s last three fights.

Moseley he was clearly caught by two of the biggest punches he has ever been hit with and arguably lost the first 2 rounds.

Ortiz who frankly carries basic unimpressive power and speed yet caught Floyd with several basic straight left hands.

Cotto again has never had lightning speed or one punch KO power but managed to land punches throughout the fight and give Floyd a tough scarp even though Cotto is a straight forward fighter than years ago Floyd would ahve danced around with ease.

I am not saying that Floyd didn’t dominate these three fights. He did and in actual fact the fight with Shane Moseley from round 3 onwards was awesome, but poor Shane was even deeper into the fight with father time than Floyd and so he burnt out very quickly. Even so Floyd definitely did take punches that he never used to.

Don’t get me wrong ok, I do agree with what some fans posted, for example “Mayweather will never lose”. I honestly don’t think he will. Even in decline and at probably 80% of what his pinnacle prime was Floyd’s ability to adapt to any opponent still keeps him rating higher in boxing ability than any fighter I can think of and the nature of how he moves in the ring makes him very unlikely to fall foul to a lucky one punch KO defeat.

But guys come on, let’s not be naive and claim that Floyd moves less these days because he “wants to fight toe to toe to prove himself”, that’s just damn stupidity.

What fighter in his right mind would spend his entire career proving fight after fight how elusive and vastly superior he is to everyone he boxes but then suddenly for the last couple of fights before he retires to enjoy his money he decides “I think I want to risk my long term health now and take punches to prove I can have a war”? bare in mind this is the same fighter that openly claimed 18 months ago that he fights for money but he is not willing to risk his health as that is the most important thing to him.

Again I am sure there will be many posters finding some part of this article that makes them think I am launching into a personal attack on Floyd (a fighter I have followed and loved watching for years, I am a massive fan!) when in fact this article has been more about praise.

Lets see how much i will be blasted this time for even suggesting that Floyd, a human being can, wait for it……………….get old like the rest of the world.



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