By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants to have his face on all 4 of the world title belts. Mayweather wants the fighters to petition to have his face on the belts. It’s unknown if the unbeaten former 5-division world champion Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) is serious or not.
The World Boxing Council has the likeness of Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali on their WBC belt. However, those boxing greats have passed away, and they had much different careers than Mayweather. Robinson and Ali fought the best, and they didn’t use catch-weight handicaps and they didn’t pad their records the way we saw with Mayweaher fighting UFC star Conor McGregor last year.
With Mayweather being a promoter now, it might look kind of strange if one of the sanctioning bodies puts his likeness on their world title belt. How would that look having a boxing promoter’s face on a world title belt? It might make things weird, especially for fighters that are promoted by other companies.
Here’s what Mayweather said to Fighthype about wanting his face on the 4 world title belts:
“I got the Emerald belt, I got the Money belt. They create belts, the named a belt after me, the money belt. As a matter of fact, I’m letting the WBC know this right now, I want all the fighters to petition – I need my face on the WBC belt and I need my face on the IBF, the WB0 and the WBA. I need my face on all belts. S***, the God father’s face should go on the belts.”
It’ll be interesting to see if any of the world title belts eventually add Mayweather’s face to their belts. We may not see it happen in our lifetimes. If Mayweather’s likeness is one day added to 1 or more of the 4 world title belts, it could happen after he passes away. It’s hard to imagine one of the sanctioning bodies adding Mayweather’s face to their belt while he’s still around, as he’s a promoter now and that makes things complicated.
As far as accomplishment goes, Mayweather did a lot with his career. However, he wasn’t the risk taker that Sugar Ray Robinson or Muhammad Ali both were during their careers in my view. Robinson and Ali were fearless. If they had fought in this era in the same weight class Mayweather did, they would have likely readily agreed to fight middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin. Mayweather didn’t want to fight Golovkin. Mayweather made excuses for why he didn’t need to fight Triple G. Ali and Robinson weren’t the type that would back away from a fight and make excuses for why they didn’t need to take that fight.
Mayweather won a lot of fights, but he did a lot of cherry picking, especially late in his career in fights against Robert Guerrero, Marcos Maidana, Andre Berto, Miguel Cotto, Victor Ortiz and Conor McGregor. There’s nothing wrong with Mayweather fighting Cotto, but when you realize that he skipped over better fighters at 154 like Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara to take the fight with the Puerto Rican star, it was a cherry-picking move. Fighting Berto in his last fight against a real boxer was a weak move by Mayweather. Ali was fighting the best until the end of his career. Ali wasn’t looking for a novice with a 0-0 record to fight at the end of his career the way Mayweather did against McGregor. Robinson finished his career with a fight against Joey Archer (44-1). What a huge difference in how Mayweather finished his career.
Sullivan Barrera says he hasn’t heard anything from Dmitry Bivol about VADA testing
Sullivan Barrera (21-1, 14 KOs) says he’s been waiting for weeks to hear from WBA World light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (12-0, 10 KOs) about the VADA testing for their upcoming fight on March 3, and he’s not sure if he’s going to agree to the testing or not.
”@bivol_d i wait for weeks about you agree to VADA test no hear anything we going fight?” said Barrera.
It’s unclear whether there will be testing or not for the fight. If Barrera, 35, backs out of the fight over testing issues, it would be a shame. It wouldn’t be the end for Barrera, as he’s still ranked and he’d likely get a crack at WBO champion Sergey Kovalev. That’s a fight that Kovalev wanted, but Barrera chose to face Bivol instead.
Barrera had a fight fall through against Artur Beterbiv last year. It would be a pity to see Barrera miss out on the Bivol fight as well.
Barrera has turned his career around since losing to Andre Ward in March 2016. Barrera has won his last 4 fights, beating Felix Valera, Joe Smith Jr., Paul Parker and Vyacheslav Shabranskyy.
The Barrera fight on March 3rd is officially confirmed and that’s good news,” said Bivol. “Barrera is a Cuban with a very good boxing background. He’s the type of opponents I want to fight. I want to deliver an exciting fight and not to let down my team, my fans @HBOboxing @Ryabinskiy #boxing,” said Bivol.