Poor Floyd

By Boxing News - 03/24/2017 - Comments

Image: Poor Floyd

By Brian Garnett: It is embarrassing to watch the best boxer of this era chase down a fight with a guy whom has never fought in a professional boxing match in Floyd Mayweather Jr. chasing a fight against Conor McGregor. It is disgusting to watch a guy to whom boxing has given so much to consistently dismiss current champions as not being “on his level” while promoting a fight with a novice. When asked about fighting a current boxing champion such as Keith Thurman Mayweather is quick to say that he has no interest in those fights or worse yet he will say he doesn’t know much about that fighter. That is utterly disrespectful to the sport of boxing.

How does the face of boxing not acknowledge other champions? Not only is he still the face of boxing, he is the owner of Mayweather Promotions. How would the head of a boxing promotion company not know of the world class fighters? I have seen more interviews featuring Floyd Mayweather in the last few months than I have in years.

The only consistent in those interviews is that he would like to fight Connor McGregor. No interest in fighting any boxer. He is regaling in all of his past glory and telling the world how great he was. Problem with that is that nobody cares what you did as long as you are an active fighter and by saying that you want to fight McGregor in a boxing match then you have not retired for good. If you are still an active boxer you owe it to the Keith Thurman’s of the world to give these young guys a shot.

Oscar De La Hoya didn’t have to fight Floyd Mayweather and propel his career. Oscar did that for boxing. Everything Floyd does is for Floyd. He says Errol Spence will be the new welterweight king but doesn’t say that he would like to fight him. I always look at the interviews of the boxers to judge the seriousness or competitiveness of fights and not one boxer that I have seen gives McGregor even a punchers chance. This fight against McGregor is simply a money grab and I am never mad at anybody for getting paid but this is laughable.

I will not be paying one dime for this spectacle. This is ten times worse than Manny Pacquiao vs Jeff Horn. At least Horn is a ranked boxer. Next Mayweather will want us to pay to see him fight the ring leader of the Universal Soul Circus. Actually, he and McGregor have the same record in boxing. I am not above watching a spectacle but rarely does a spectacle involve best boxer in the world. This is akin to Kimbo Slice making his UFC debut after fighting on the backyard circuit. He didn’t fight a great UFC champion or former champion. He fought 47 year old former boxer Ray Mercer. And all this at a time when boxing is very strong.

We have had unification fights at welterweight, light welterweight, light heavyweight and a slew of other world class fighters fighting each other instead of the blatant ducking a cherry picking that went on the last few years. With Mayweather out of the picture the best are forced to face each other. The vacuum left by his departure has created fights like Porter vs Thurman and Thurman vs Garcia. Fights that could have been made years ago but everybody was protecting their record to stay in the Mayweather sweepstakes. What Floyd is doing does nothing for boxing.

It may help the UFC get some publicity and it will certainly line some pockets up with a big bank roll but I know of exactly zero boxing fan who has interest in this boxing match. Floyd has the ability to make the best boxes in the world look bad so I know enough about boxing that a guy with zero fight will not present much of an issue for Floyd.

If he can make a Manny Pacquiao fight boring imagine what a snooze fest a fight with McGregor will be. Mayweather vs McGregor in boxing is like watching Jordan play Tiger Woods in basketball. They are both great at what they do but its not close to being the same thing. If Mayweather wants my hard earned buck for a fight against McGregor he is going to have to fight him in an UFC cage.