By Sean McDaniel: It kind of looks bad that Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) picked a smaller fighter to make his boxing comeback on July 18th. Instead of picking on someone his own size, Mayweather had to select World Boxing Organization lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs), who only recently moved up to lightweight and looks smaller and weaker at that weight than he did at super featherweight.
For Mayweather, a natural welterweight, this is the second consecutive bout in which he’s taken on a smaller fighter than him. In his last fight, in December 2007, Mayweather defeated Ricky Hatton, who has been a light welterweight for most of his career.
After retiring following the Hatton fight, Mayweather recently decided to come out of retirement and fight the 35-year-old Marquez. I had hopes that Mayweather would finally fight a top welterweight for a change, because since moving up to welterweight, Mayweather has beaten Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir, two good welterweight, but not in the league of Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley or Paul Williams.
Those are the fighters that many people were hoping that Mayweather would fight. I knew Mayweather wouldn’t, though. He didn’t do in 2007, instead going after De La Hoya and Hatton, so why should Mayweather do it now.
The problem is by picking fighters smaller than him each time, and not fighting the best welterweights in the division, Mayweather is eroding his star appeal and making it appear that he’s just looking for winnable fights to make money before disappearing again for another year or two to spend all the loot that he’s made.
By not fighting Cotto, Williams and Mosley, Mayweather is changing how he’s looked on by other boxing fans, who see it as a Mayweather ducking these fighters for opponents that are less threatening to him. That’s not that Marquez is an easy opponent, because he’s not.
But Marquez is a lot smaller than Mayweather, and doesn’t have the size to compete on an even playing field. If that doesn’t bother Mayweather then so be it, but I think it will bother a lot of boxing fans, who will wonder why Mayweather is coming back to go after Marquez and Manny Pacquiao, both of whom were super featherweights only a couple of years ago.
Marquez and Pacquiao may have moved up in weight, but they’re not nearly the same size as Mayweather. This is what makes Mayweather look so bad, because if he would at least fight Cotto, Mosley or Williams, I’m sure that boxing fans wouldn’t be so against Mayweather cherry picking for smaller fighters to get a payday against.
Mayweather could get the same payday against Miguel Cotto, except that it would be a very tough fight and Mayweather would be at risk of losing it. I think Mayweather could beat Cotto, but he’d get punished before it was over and would have to do a lot of running in the 2nd half to keep from getting knocked out.
Against Paul Williams, Mayweather would lose badly by a decision or maybe even a knockout. Mayweather will never fight a dangerous welterweight like Williams, but he’d be respected a lot more for fighting Williams than he will be for fighting Marquez, believe me.
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