By Jason Kim: A slightly despondent Floyd Mayweather Jr. mopped about not getting the love and credit that he thought was due to him at a post-fight press conference following his lopsided 12-round unanimous decision victory over Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday night at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather, 32, put on a masterful performance against the 36-year-old Marquez, appearing by many boxing enthusiasts to have won every round of the fight with ease.
However, Mayweather wasn’t greeted immediately with the kind of appreciation that he thought he was going to get moments after the fight. HBO sports analyst Max Kellerman wasted little time with the niceties and point blank asked Mayweather about him coming in over the 144 pound catch weight. Things went down hill shortly after that when Kellerman mentioned Shane Mosley as an opponent for Mayweather.
As if by magic, Mosley appeared and Mayweather’s moment of basking in the glory quickly turned into a brief argument between him and Mosley. All of this, of course, was caught on film by HBO and broadcasted into the living rooms of millions of boxing fans all around the United States, and elsewhere around the world.
Needless to say, Mayweather looked miserable, like a kid whose birthday party was spoiled. It seems as if Mayweather misjudged a good portion of the boxing public when he opted to fight Marquez, a fighter who only a couple of years ago was fighting at super featherweight.
Perhaps Mayweather thought that it would be something that would be ignored by people. However, it wasn’t missed by diehard boxing fans, who saw it as a case of Mayweather selecting a smaller fighter who couldn’t put up as much of a fight as a welterweight. It reasons that a fighter with Mayweather’s talent shouldn’t be fighting opponents that are older, slower and fighting two divisions below him.
It would be something that would cause criticism for any fighter in the sport, but for a fighter with a lot of talent like Mayweather, it was like having a kick me sign taped to him. Mayweather obviously chose Marquez as an opponent because he’s close to the same size as Manny Pacquiao, the fighter who has taken over Mayweather’s spot as the number #1 pound-for-pound fighter in boxing.
In addition, Marquez has fought Pacquiao twice, fighting to a draw in the first fight and then losing the second bout in a 12 round split decision. By beating Marquez, Mayweather would, in a small way, be showing that he’s still the best fighter in boxing.
The problem for Mayweather, however, is that Pacquiao is a lot smaller than him, just as Marquez was last Saturday night. It’s a situation where Mayweather gets little credit if he beats Pacquiao and Marquez, because with his size advantage, it’s a given that he should be able to dominate them.
And yet, Mayweather seems incapable of understanding why he’s not getting credit for his wins. By his thinking, he started out as a super featherweight, so he shouldn’t be considered to be a bigger fighter than the smaller opponents that he’s been beating up on recently.
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