Ishe Smith thinks it’s crazy for people to want Mayweather to fight Golovkin

By Boxing News - 08/12/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather and Andre BertoBy Allan Fox: Former junior middleweight world champion Ishe Smith believes that Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t get credit from boxing fans no matter what he does. He can beat Keith Thurman and Kell Brook, and he won’t receive credit for beating him.

Smith thinks that Mayweather didn’t get the appreciation he should have gotten for his win over Manny Pacquiao recently due to the Filipino revealing that he came into the fight with a bad right shoulder problem.

Smith especially thinks it’s crazy for boxing fans to be pressuring Mayweather to fight IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

“He’s fought everybody man, and to sit here and complain now, ‘ah fight Triple-G [undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin],’ it’s just crazy stuff man and I think they won’t respect him or appreciate him until he’s gone,” Smith said via Fighthype.com.

The only reason why boxing fans want to see Mayweather fight Golovkin is because both fighters are considered the best in their respective divisions. Mayweather is the best at 147 and 154; whereas Golovkin is considered the best at 160. Golovkin has said that he would be willing to drop down to 154 to fight Mayweather, so it makes sense for boxing fans to be interested in seeing that fight.

Mayweather fought a heavier fighter than Golovkin when he defeated Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by a 12 round decision in 2013. Canelo outweighs Golovkin in his fights 175 to 170. Boxing fans figure that if Mayweather was open to fighting Canelo, then he should be willing to fight Golovkin as well because he is after all smaller than Canelo. Golovkin just is willing to fight in the middleweight division against guys his own size, whereas Canelo prefers to fight in his own weight division 155 against junior middleweights.

“He’s getting at that stage in his career where he’s in a no-win situation. It was Manny [Pacquiao]; dusted him away, made it look easy, and he got at fault for that, ‘oh fight him without a bum shoulder,” Smith said. “He made Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez “look like an amateur. [Mayweather is] going out on his own terms [fighting Andre Berto]. [He’s] in the conversation as one of the best-ever.”

I think fans did give Mayweather credit for beating Pacquiao. Mayweather has had nothing but respect from the boxing fans since his win over Pacquiao last May. But like with any profession, people don’t want to see you slack off on your job by taking it easy.

Mayweather’s fight with Andre Berto on September 12th is seen by fans are Mayweather slacking off, and the fans don’t want to see it. Smith might think it’s great that Mayweather is slacking off, but the fans don’t see it that way because they can’t do that in their jobs and they can’t do that in school. The fans especially don’t want to pay to see someone slack off. If the boxing fans slacked off in their daily jobs by choosing to just go half speed because they had done a good job the day before, their boss might not be too happy to see them slacking off. Ishe Smith might think it’s a good thing to see Mayweather taking it easy, but the fans can’t identify with that kind behavior because in America you’re expected to work hard at all times in your job. There are no easy days where you take it easy.

“It’s sad because this is the day and age of sports we live in. He’ll [Mayweather] never satisfy the critics,” Smith said. “He can fight [WBA welterweight champion Keith] Thurman, beat him and they’ll be like ‘oh he wasn’t ready, he was too young.’ I don’t know what else he could do. He could fight [IBF welterweight champ] Kell Brook they’ll be like ‘oh we don’t know him. He only beat one person, came over here and beat Shawn Porter, we don’t know nothing about Kell Brook.’”

Mayweather would definitely get a lot of respect if he were to fight and beat Kell Brook and Keith Thurman. Smith is generalizing. Boxing fans would respect Mayweather for facing those two guys because they’re both top fighters. However, the fans don’t respect Mayweather for fighting Andre Berto though, because he’s not considered a top fighter, even though the World Boxing Association gave Berto their WBA interim title after beat 2nd tier fighter Josesito Lopez. Fans don’t care about that title that was given to Berto.

The fans only see that Berto has lost 3 out of his last 6 fights and hasn’t beaten anyone that you can call a good fighter since his wins over Juan Urango and Luis Collazo in 2009. That was six years ago, and Berto stopped beating quality fighters after those wins. fans can’t respect Mayweather for fighting a guy who looks to be over-the-hill like Berto. They can respect Mayweather if he can beat in their prime fighters like Thurman and Brook.



Comments are closed.