By Dave Lahr: When you look at how good Floyd Mayweather Jr. was earlier in his career and how much he was achieving by winning titles in the super featherweight, lightweight. Light welterweight and welterweight divisions, and then look at him now, Mayweather seems to be kind of a sell out in a way. Mayweather is no longer taking on fighters in his own weight class, and is instead hunting down smaller fighters like Ricky Hatton, Juan Manuel Marquez and soon to be Manny Pacquiao.
I think Mayweather is a great fighter and has a right to look out for himself financially by going after the fights that make him the most amount of money. But, when those fights come against smaller fighters than him, I think boxing fans are the ones that lose out. Why? Because Mayweather wins those fights without too many problems, and of course he’s going to win them without too much trouble, because he is the bigger fighter.
The fights end up being boring to watch because his opponent is too small to land anything and we get another mismatch. I wouldn’t mind it so much if Mayweather took a small fry every once in awhile to fight, just as long as he then came back and fought someone his own size in his next fight. And, yeah, I know Mayweather moved up in weight to fight Oscar De La Hoya at light middleweight, but that fight hardly counts because De La Hoya was for the most shot beyond belief by that time in his career.
Do you honestly think that Mayweather would move up to light middleweight to take on someone like James Kirkland or someone like Julian Jackson, if he was still fighting. It wouldn’t happen, because Mayweather would be forced to go life and death with those kinds of fighters and they, with their power, would be capable of taking Mayweather’s head off with a single punch.
Mayweather could make them miss for awhile with his shoulder rolls, but eventually they get to him and likely mess his world up. But the thing of it is, Mayweather would probably never get close to fighting them. And you can say the same thing for Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito or Joshua Clottey.
I see those guys as being off limits for Mayweather, because they’d be fights where Mayweather would be forced to dig deep to win. You don’t beat fighters like them without them getting their pound of flesh. Mayweather never fought guys like Kostya Tszyu while he was still fighting.
And should have been a fight that Mayweather went after in a heartbeat at light welterweight. Instead, boxing fans had to be satisfied with watching Mayweather fight DeMarcus Corley, Henry Bruseles and Arturo Gatti. I know Gatti was a great brawler, but he wasn’t in Mayweather’s class and this turned out to be a terribly one-sided fight, as many boxing fans expected it would be. But at least back then, Mayweather was still fighting opponents in his own weight class instead of hand picking either shot bigger guys like De La Hoya or little fighters like Hatton, Marquez and Pacquiao.
I watch the fights because I have to as part of being a writer, but I would never pay to watch these mismatches if I were just a normal fan. Why would I? You know going in that Mayweather is the much bigger guy and has the faster hand speed. How can he not win? None of these fighters are one punch knockout artists, so there’s little for Mayweather to fear in the fights.
Besides his choice of opponents, Mayweather’s safety first style of fighting is another turn off for me. Mayweather does just enough to win his fights, and usually pot shots from the outside trying not to get hit. I know Mayweather doesn’t need to do anything other than win and focus on looking out for himself.
But for boxing fans, I don’t see them getting their monies worth in watching his style of fighting, especially when it’s against a smaller fighter. Mayweather likes to avoid punishment and use his fast hands to land and get away without being hit. But I don’t see him as a pay-per-view attraction with that kind of fighting style.
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