By John Kelvin: Many boxing fans and members of the media enjoy discrediting Floyd Mayweather Jr’s career. They continually call him a coward for supposedly in their eyes not fighting the best and instead cherry picking opponents to preserve his unbeaten record. I find it disrespectful to call a boxer a coward or scared when they continually face world class opponents at the highest level of the sport, if they were scared they would have stopped boxing a long time ago.

This sort of attitude shows how little understanding people have about boxing and on fighting in general. Floyd Mayweather is the most skillful boxer in the world but his skills are not fully appreciated because some people dislike the way he portrays himself. People become blinded by hatred and don’t realize that Mayweather’s persona is all an act in an effort to maximize PPV sales. Let’s go through some of so called weak and cherry picked opponents of Mayweather’s career.

Genaro Hernandez – 40 wins and 1 loss, Mayweather’s first title fight.

Diego Corrales – huge puncher and undefeated, favored by many going into the fight, came back to win the lightweight title against Castillo

Jose Luis Castillo – champion at lightweight, Floyd’s first fight at 135, defeated Corrales by knockout to reclaim the lightweight title

Carlos Baldomir – 7 fight win streak including wins over Arturo Gatti and Zab Judah, recognized champion at 147

De La Hoya – fought at 154, Floyd’s first fight in the weight class,

Hatton – undefeated

Marquez – just knocked out Juan Diaz, Floyd wins every round after a 21 month break from the sport

Mosley – Coming off a knock out win over Margarito who had stopped Cotto

Cotto – 3 fight win streak, Floyd’s 2nd fight at 154lbs

Canelo – undefeated, 15lb weight advantage, 15 years younger

Maidana – 4 wins and 3 knockouts at 147lbs, defeated Adrien Broner in last fight

Those are just some of the championship fights in which Mayweather has been victorious. The wins against De La Hoya, Mosley, Hatton and Cotto are often compared to the wins Manny Pacquiao claimed against these four boxers. Pacquiao faced De La Hoya at welterweight and stopped him in 8 rounds. Oscar was severely weight drained as was shown by his performance in the ring. Mayweather faced De La Hoya at his more natural weight of 154 lbs. Mayweather fought Cotto at 154 lbs but Pacquiao insisted of a weight of 145 lbs. Why was Pacquiao unable to face Cotto at the full welterweight limit of 147 lbs like he did against Oscar? Mayweather faced Mosley when we was coming off the Margarito win and Manny faced him when he was coming off a draw with Sergio Mora. People now say Floyd beat an old Mosley but fail to mention Pacquiao defeated a worse version 1 year later. This seems to be forgotten about. Mayweather defeated an unbeaten Hatton at welterweight in 10 rounds and Pacquiao knocked him out in the 2nd round at 140. Most undefeated fighters are never the same after a knockout loss as Hatton showed in his poor performances after Mayweather against Juan Lazcano, Malignaggi and then Pacquiao.

I hope people start to try and educate themselves about the sport instead of making wild claims and assumptions based on what the media and other casual fans say.