By Jim Dower: Before Floyd Mayweather Jr. retired in 2007, he was already considered by many knowledgeable boxing fans to be a fighter that carefully chooses his opponents to minimize risk in order to get the most financial gain. In other words, a “cherry picker.”
During the earlier part of his career, Mayweather had somehow avoided fighting good fighters like Kostya Tszyu while the Russian fighter was in his prime. Later on, when Mayweather moved up in weight to the welterweight division there were a number of fighters that many boxing people felt that Mayweather Jr. would never fight no matter what.
Those fighters were Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams. When the boxing public was practically screaming out for Mayweather to fight one or all of these fighters, Mayweather instead went after an old Oscar De La Hoya.
It was assumed that Mayweather would win due to his youth, and of course, he did. The next logical fight for Mayweather, you would think, would be for him to go after one of the aforementioned top welterweights. However, instead of doing that, Mayweather Jr. found a small fighter by the name of Ricky Hatton to fight.
Again, few gave Hatton a chance in the fight and naturally he was beat up and knocked out by the 10th round. With Hatton and De La Hoya out of the way, it was hoped that Mayweather would now go after Cotto, Margarito, Williams or Mosley. However, before Mayweather abruptly retired from boxing in December 2007, Mayweather was discussing a rematch with De La Hoya.
It was assumed that after Mayweather fought De La Hoya for a second time, he would then go after Hatton for another fight that was entirely unneeded from the fans’ perspective. Oh sure, it was good for Mayweather, because it would make him even more money, but for boxing fans to have him go round and round against fighters that he had already beaten, it was like a slow death and a waste of time.
Thankfully, Mayweather retired and we had a quiet two years of watching Hatton carefully do a bit of cherry picking himself in selecting Juan Lazcano and Paulie Malignaggi to fight instead of going after the much more dangerous light welterweights Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt, Junior Witter, Ricardo Torres and Victor Ortiz.
The recently when Mayweather suddenly came out of retirement, I figured he now had to fight Cotto, Williams or Mosley, because Hatton had the stuffing beaten out of him by Manny Pacquiao. Nope! I guess I was wrong, because Mayweather selected lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez, the WBA lightweight champion, who fights an incredible two divisions below Mayweather’s welterweight class.
And best of all, Mayweather wants to fight Pacquiao if Floyd can beat Marquez. I doubt Mayweather will have many problems with Marquez since he’ll have a considerable size advantage over him. The fight will be fought at a 142 pound catch weight, but you can bet that Mayweather will be the much larger fighter come fight night. I can’t see the value in this fight, because Marquez is so much smaller than Mayweather.
However, it’s not about fair. This is about Mayweather getting a win over a popular fighter, so that he can add it to his record. Boxing fans, especially the casual ones that don’t have clue about who is who in the sport, will think, ‘Wow! Mayweather is great, look who he just beat.’
Even knowledgeable fans inclined to like Mayweather, will likely be enamored of a victory over the 35-year-old Marquez. But this fight, along with Mayweather’s other bouts against fighters not in his weight class, is what’s wrong with the sport.
Fighters looking for the easiest fight to make the most amount of money rather than facing the best fighters in their own weight class and letting them get a name for themselves by beating someone like Mayweather. I think Mayweather is a great fighter, even if he does cherry pick his opponents, but I think he would lose to Mosley, Cotto and definitely Williams.
It’s too bad Mayweather will never fight them. Once Mayweather fights Marquez and Pacquiao, Mayweather will either try to fight a rematch with Pacquiao, Hatton or De La Hoya, or else retire from the sport once again. He won’t fight a top welterweight and there won’t be any more lightweights or light welterweights worth fighting, so I see Mayweather disappearing for another two years before he returns having spent all of his money.
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