Watch: Mayweather looks SLOW during sparring session

By Boxing News - 10/15/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: If Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to launch a comeback, he’s going to need to pick up some hand speed, power and sharpen up his game DRAMATICALLY, because he looked slow and weak during a sparring session caught on film on Friday at the Mayweather Boxing Gym in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The real question that you have to ask is why is Mayweather all of a sudden sparring? Is he thinking about making a comeback to take on unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin like many boxing fans are hoping he will? It would be big news if that’s the case. Golovkin is the only one that Mayweather can fight that will interest the fans in this writer’s opinion.

If Mayweather comes back to face Saul Canelo Alvarez, Manny Pacquiao z or Miguel Cotto again, those fights likely won’t do very well on pay-per-view. They won’t bring in the huge number of buys that they brought in the past, because Mayweather already proved that he was better than those fighters. It would look like a money grab attempt by Mayweather if he came back to fight Cotto, Pacquiao or Canelo for a second time. It would be similar to how Top Rank recently matched Pacquiao against Tim Bradley in a third fight despite the fact there was no interest from the boxing public and no real reason for the two of them to face each other a third time. It was a mistake to put Pacquiao and Bradley in together a third time.

After a year out of the ring, Mayweather did some sparring work against a bigger fighter, who looked like he was just there to plod forward and not throw many punches. Still, the sparring partner, who looked like a middleweight in size, was able to catch Mayweather with shots repeatedly. Mayweather looked uncomfortable with the pressure, and he was forced to get on his bike to move around the ring.

If Mayweather does come back to fight Golovkin, I don’t think he’s going to do well against him. Even if Mayweather insists that Golovkin boil down to 150 for the fight, I think it’ll end badly for Mayweather. His sparring session on Friday showed that he can’t move fast enough not to get hit with left hooks.

Mayweather kept backing up against the ropes during his sparring session, and getting nailed with left hooks. Mayweather tried the shoulder roll while backed up against the ropes, but it wasn’t helping him avoid getting hit. That defensive posture may have worked for Mayweather in the past when he was facing lesser fighters or smaller fighters, but it’s not going to work at this point if he fights Golovkin.

I don’t think it would even work against someone good at welterweight like Keith Thurman. Let’s be honest though. There is NO WAY that Mayweather could come back to fight Thurman. That’s not going to happen. If Mayweather is going to fight a welterweight, it’ll be either Manny Pacquiao or Danny Garcia. Those are two flawed fighters at 147 that even this version of Mayweather can beat. Mayweather wouldn’t beat Thurman and definitely not Errol Spence Jr. Those guys have too much power for Mayweather.

The one thing that gave Mayweather the ability to beat more powerful guys at welterweight in the past was his blazing hand speed. The year that Mayweather has been off from boxing hasn’t helped his hand speed any, as he looks a slower than he did in the past. Without hand speed and punching power, Mayweather would be a sitting duck for Golovkin. It would be a massacre at this point.

Former four division world champion Adrien Broner was one of the onlookers during Mayweather’s sparring session, saying that he looked “sharp as hell,” per fighthype.com. I beg to differ. Mayweather looked like he’d lost a lot from his game in the year that he’s been out of the boxing ring. Mayweather last fought in September 2015 in beating Andre Berto by a dull 12 round unanimous decision. That was a fight that Mayweather had said he was going to put on a show for the boxing fans. However, it was the same boring performance from Mayweather that we saw in his previous fight against Manny Pacquiao in May 2015. It was a safety first type of fight.

Mayweather does have the talent, speed or power to fend off a guy like Golovkin right now in my opinion. As bad as Mayweather looks right now, I think even Canelo Alvarez would do him. It wouldn’t be pretty. All the things that Mayweather was able to do with Canelo three years ago in their fight in 2013, he wouldn’t be able to do today. Canelo has also filled out since his fight with Mayweather.

Canelo is probably no lighter than 175lbs for his fights after he rehydrates. Unless Mayweather got Canelo to agree to a rehydration clause that kept him from going above 167, I think Mayweather would be overwhelmed by Canelo’s size advantage. But a fight against Golovkin would be REALLY bad for Mayweaher, because he has that bad habit of backing up against the ropes and using his shoulder roll to try and block shots. That might work for Mayweather to block some of the incoming fire from Golovkin, but not enough for him to escape the fight without getting knocked out. The good news for Mayweather is he’d be able to retire with possibly a nine-figure payday in losing to Golovkin.

To be sure, it would be a bad ending for Mayweather’s boxing career, but at least he could get one bigger payday before exciting the game for good if that was going to be his final fight of his long career. Like with welterweight Kell Brook, Mayweather would have a built in excuse for why he lost to Golovkin. Mayweather wouldn’t take the same kind of heavy criticism that he’d take if he came back and lost to the likes of Keith Thurman or Danny Garcia. The fans wouldn’t give Mayweather nearly as much of a hard time if he got drilled into the canvas by Golovkin.

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