By Eric Schmidt: In the early 90s, Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 28 KOs) was considered to be arguably the pound-for-pound best boxer in all of boxing. His boxing skills, along with his incredible hand speed, were nothing short of extraordinary. There was one problem, however. Jones wasn’t taking on the harder fights, seeming to avoid potential mega-bout against fighters like Dariusz Michawlzewski, Julian Jackson, Gerald McClellan, and Nigel Benn, to name just a few of the top fighters that he failed to get in the ring with.
Believe me, any one of those fighters would have jumped at the chance to fight Jones, knowing that they’d be no doubt paid handsomely for it. Instead of huge fights, we saw Jones fighting boring matches against fighters like Clinton Woods, Richard Hill, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney and Montell Griffin.
All of them are great fighters, I would say, but none of them in my view had the status of the fighters listed above. Now, bring in WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs), who has faced none of what I consider to be the top welterweights in the division – Paul Williams, Miguel Cotto, Kermit Cintron and Antonio Margarito. Instead of taking on the best in the welterweight division, Mayweather 30, faces what many people consider a shot Oscar De La Hoya, and then following that, Ricky Hatton, a junior welterweight, who was forced to fight out of his weight class in order to fight Mayweather.
After beating Hatton, which was almost a forgone conclusion, Mayweather announces that he’s going to take a year off because there aren’t any challenges for him in boxing, despite the fact that Mayweather hasn’t fought any of the actual top fighters in the welterweight. In the past couple of weeks, there has been news of Mayweather getting back in the ring on September 20th for a second bout with De La Hoya, even though the first fight was far from interesting to watch.
Names such as Cotto, Williams and Margarito, are failed to be mentioned by Mayweather, as he sets his site on Mayweather, while skipping over fighters that would really test him in the ring. In fact, many people in the boxing world feel that Mayweather would be severely tested by Margarito and especially Williams, both of which would have a size, reach and power advantage over Mayweather.
To some, Mayweather appears to be avoiding the hard fights against opponents that would possibly beat him, or take him to the brink of defeat. If this is indeed the case, it wouldn’t be the first time that Mayweather has done this, for during his time as a junior welterweight champion he failed to take on then champion Kostya Tszyu, who would have been a very tough opponent for Mayweather.
Somehow, Tszyu was avoided by Mayweather, who instead fought junior welterweights like DeMarcus Corley (who stunned Mayweather in the bout with a big left hand), Henry Bruseles, and Arturo Gatti. All good fighters, but none in the class of Tszyu, even though by this point in his career he was no longer considered to be in his prime.
With Mayweather all but set to fight De La Hoya for a second time on September 20th, I suppose people (Mayweather’s fans) would say, ‘why bother risking your unbeaten record against the likes of Cotto, Williams, Margarito and Cintron when you don’t need to?’ That’s certainly true, but if a fighter like Mayweather wants to be thought of as an all time great, like he says he is, then naturally one would assume that he’d want to face the best in the welterweight division. If he doesn’t feel that he needs to, then it would seem that Mayweather is indeed following Jones’ career almost to the letter.