By Mauricio Carranza: Recently in an interview with ESPN, Floyd Mayweather Jr. claimed to be a better fighter than the great Muhammad Ali. Now before we go over this statement, let me just say that Floyd Mayweather Jr is arguably the best defensive fighter of this decade, a master of the Philly shell with great speed and fantastic reflexes. He has maintained his undefeated throughout the years fighting good opposition and making millions of dollars in the process.
Now with that being said there are some problems with Floyd claiming to be better than Ali at this point in his career. The main one being that he has yet to defeat his greatest enemy Manny Pacquiao. He’s the only other active boxer that could be considered a top 10 greatest of all time and could arguably be considered greater than Mayweather by defeating him May 2nd in their mega-fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. And, by the way, Pacquiao has won fighter of the decade, becoming part of a long line of all time great fighters. This achievement does not make Pacquiao better than Mayweather, especially considering the setbacks the Filipino has encountered throughout his career, but it does say something about Mayweather’s claim to be the best ever when he wasn’t the best of the decade.
Unfortunately for Mayweather’s case of being the TBE there is more question marks, which him himself has brought up to the surface by stating that he chooses his opponents many times in the past. Mayweather has stated his health comes first and that’s why “picking” and choosing should be acceptable, now this is a fair argument, but I can guarantee you that choosing was not an option for the great fighters before Mayweather’s time.
The opposition Mayweather has faced throughout his career has been pretty good, but let’s not forget how there has been many times Mayweather has opted to wait on fights that might have been a lot riskier at an earlier time. Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams, Pacquiao come to mind when thinking of fights that should had happened or should had been made earlier rather than later.
At the end of his career Mayweather will be regarded has an all time great, but the final judgement on his status as the the best ever [TBE] will be left at the hands of the boxing fans.
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