In the latest boxing news, World Boxing Council welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) said to Franklin McNeil of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, “He (Miguel Cotto) knows he can’t beat me. He knows. Cotto’s remedy to beat me is pressure, pressure, pressure. That’s not the remedy to beat me.” Apparently, Mayweather, 30, is more interested in taking 2008 off to pursue his other interests, such as boxing promotion, music and film.
However, there are people in the boxing community that see Mayweather’s actions – or lack there of – spurred mostly because of his fear of being beaten, and hence risking his reputation as the pound-4-pound number one fighter in boxing. To be sure, Mayweather has carefully selected the vast majority of his opponents since 2003, somehow avoiding the best fighters in the division, yet the public appears none the wiser for his actions. In saying that he’ll be focusing on his other interests, Mayweather has a ready made excuse to avoid Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams and Kermit Cintron, the top fighters in the welterweight division and the ones that Mayweather should have been fighting the past couple of years if he was serious about wanting to fight the best.
Instead, we saw Mayweather go up against a faded Oscar De La Hoya, Arturo Gatti, Carlos Baldomir, Zab Judah and now an undersized welterweight, Ricky Hatton. None of those fighters would have much of a chance against Margarito, Cotto, Williams and Cintron, and would likely get stopped in brutal fashion. For this reason, it seems embarrassingly revealing that Mayweather would choose this time to step away from boxing rather than having to take the type of fights he should have been years ago. Without facing the best, Mayweather’s Pound-4-Pound label is meaningless, and basically laughable.
It’s like looking at a shadow boxer and giving him an exalted title, despite the fact that he never stepped in the ring with a live person. Unless I miss my guess, even when Mayweather does come back, it won’t be against Cotto, or any of the other top welterweights. Instead, we’ll likely see Mayweather go up against De La Hoya or Hatton again, while telling the world what a good businessman he is.
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