By Chris Williams: ESPN’s Brian Campbell thinks WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) will be playing it safe in his final two fights on his Showtime/CBS contract by choosing to fight guys that aren’t what he considers to be dangerous.
Campbell doesn’t see Mayweather choosing to fight Manny Pacquiao in 2015 or any fighters who he considers dangerous. Campbell didn’t say who these so-called dangerous fighters are that Mayweather is supposed to be fighting because he’s pretty much already cleaned out the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions already.
The only guys Mayweather hasn’t fought at 147 that is worth mentioning is Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Pacquiao and Keith Thurman. Khan, Brook and Thurman aren’t dangerous fighters. I’d pick Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to beat all three of them by knockout or one-sided decisions, and we saw what Mayweather did to Canelo.
The only guy that Campbell could be talking about in terms of a dangerous is Pacquiao, and he would likely be the easiest fight of the bunch for Mayweather due to Pacquiao’s short legs and his inability to cut off the ring against opponents that move.
“I’d like to come at you with some optimism that Floyd has a big surprise up his sleeve that he’s really going to match himself big or go out of his way to match himself with a dangerous opponent, but I just don’t think so because of two reasons,” Campbell said to ESPN.com. “He’s got the guarantee for the last two fights on Showtime no matter who he fights. Number 2, he’s going to be 38 the next time he steps foot inside the ring. He’s slipping just a bit. I think he’s going to stay away from anyone crazy dangerous. I’m going to say Amir Khan in the spring and my crystal ball tells me Danny Garcia in the fall. And then you know if you want to have your Mayweather-Pacquiao fantasy after that then maybe it can happen after that deal is done. But for 2015, I don’t see him taking any chances.”
I disagree with Campbell. Mayweather will take on the most dangerous guy that’s available at the time. Pacquiao probably won’t be on Mayweather’s list because he already told Pacquiao what he needed to do in order to get a fight against him, and Pacquiao chose not to do it. So Pacquiao will likely be out of luck in trying to get a fight against the top money fighter in boxing.
Campbell thinks Khan will be the one that Mayweather winds up fighting in the spring. I’d be surprised if that’s the case because Khan still has too many losses that he never avenged. It’s not much of a challenge for Mayweather to fight Khan knowing that Breidis Prescott, Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson already beat him before he did.
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