Floyd Mayweather Jr: Thanks for the memories

By Boxing News - 09/10/2015 - Comments

Image: Floyd Mayweather Jr: Thanks for the memoriesBy Joshua Broom: With Saturday night’s bout against a vastly overmatched Andre Berto (30-3 23 KO), pound for pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0 26 KO) will be riding off into the sunset of a brilliant career.

I would venture to say I summed up Mayweather’s 19 year professional career in articulate fashion in my piece “Mayweather’s Legacy”, so I won’t use this article as a platform to delve into the specifics of Floyd’s 3 decades as an in ring competitor.

Suffice it to say that Mayweather has been atop the pound for pound ranking for the better part of 15 years, he has never officially tasted defeat and he has captured world championships in 5 different weight classes.

Rather, I will use this literary platform as an opportunity to express how I feel about Mayweather’s exit from the sport as well as his near farcical choice of final opponent. I will also offer an obligatory prediction (as if one is actually needed) pertaining to Saturday night’s main event from the MGM Grand.

At 38 years of age and many seasons spent as a veteran of the ring wars, it only seems fitting that Mayweather hang up his gloves after Saturday night’s fistic encounter. However, unlike many of his exiting contemporaries, Mayweather is far from a shot fighter. He has shown little to no signs of erosion in defeating his last several opponents. The main impetus for Floyd stepping away is that he has simply garnered an exorbitant amount of wealth, prestige and success in the sport to the point that it no longer makes sense for him to continue fighting after this Saturday night.

I think that Floyd’s retirement helps the sport, yet hurts it at the same time. Floyd retiring and thus vacating his 147 and 154 pound titles opens the door for younger talent to step up and make a name for themselves. It gives boxers such as Keith Thurman, Errol Spence, Amir Imam and a handful of other young world-class hopefuls the chance to grab the torch that Floyd is passing, and attempt to become legendary themselves. Simply put, Floyd’s stepping away from the sport is great in an evolutionary sense for boxing.

Unfortunately, Floyd’s exit devastates the economy of boxing. Modern boxing sadly is a business first enterprise. With no one in the sport even coming close to earning as much as Floyd does per fight or matching his buy rates, the business side of boxing will definitely be sad to see Floyd go. Furthermore, there is no one even remotely on the horizon who could step in as even a semi-competent successor to Floyd’s lofty throne as “Cash Cow” for the sport of kings. It will be a long time indeed before boxing finds it’s next big box-office draw.

With an exiting Floyd Mayweather Jr’s impact on the sport touched upon, I will now offer up my fairly obvious prediction for the outcome of Floyd’s final bout.

Let me first state that if Floyd were not a businessman first, then perhaps he would have challenged himself by facing some of the aforementioned younger talent in his swansong as a professional fighter. But Floyd is a businessman, and a great one at that. So, instead of fighting an undefeated young champion like Keith Thurman in his final bout, he will be facing a faded former Welterweight champion in Andre Berto.

My official prediction for the Mayweather Jr. vs Berto fight is an 8th round corner retirement by a battered Berto that allows Floyd to do a victory lap of sorts en-route to a perfect career mark of 49-0.

Ahead of this fight, I say thank you Floyd for the memories. You should’ve fought Pacquiao 5 years ago and your shop-worn opponent for Saturday night four years ago.



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