By Eric Thomas: In the latest news from the rumor mill, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is getting beaten up in sparring sessions with World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (27-0, 13 KO’s). I can’t say I’m all that surprised if it does turn out to be true because Peterson, 25, is one of the best light welterweights in the division.
I rate him well ahead of Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan, two more popular fighters in the division. Given that this is a sparring session and not real combat, it’s hard to say whether this means anything or not. This obviously was with head gear and over sized gloves and if you take those items out of the equation, it could be a whole different outcome.
With that said, this is quite a development if Mayweather was getting beaten up by Peterson, because Mayweather has always come out on top in his other training camps, beating up one sparring partner after another and sending them home bloodied and battered.
If a fighter of Peterson’s caliber is able to beat up on Mayweather, this has got to be taken as a signal that Mayweather has lost a step or two with his long two year layoff from boxing. Mayweather is 32, and not a young pup anymore. Peterson is a young lion in the light welterweight division and not an easy win for anyone. If Peterson is whipping on Mayweather, gosh, I’d hate to see what Timothy Bradley would do to Mayweather. Bradley is considered to be the best fighter in the light welterweight division and is just as fast as Peterson with his punches.
Could Mayweather be over the hill? The sport waits for no one and with Mayweather having the time of his life in the past two years spending a lot of the money that he made in fights against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton, the younger fighters have gotten better while Mayweather has merely aged. You could say that sparring is only practice and that it doesn’t count.
But being an athlete myself, I was able to get the better of my teammates in practice sessions in football, track and wrestling, I was pretty much certain I could do it in a real game situation. This could be a sign that Mayweather is slipping as a fighter.
Mayweather hasn’t looked all that great in HBO’s Mayweather-Marquez 24/7 episodes. Mayweather looks older, slower and not the same fighter he was two years ago. If Mayweather can’t deal with a fighter like Peterson, who I don’t consider to be the top fighter in the light welterweight division, that pretty much tells you that Mayweather’s days as a top fighter are dwindling. Mayweather is facing a top fighter on September 19th, going up against Juan Manuel Marquez.
While Mayweather seems to have hedged his bets by picking a much smaller fighter than him for this bout, it may not matter. Mayweather could lose anyway. When a fighter is over the hill, they’re vulnerable against almost anyone. In Mayweather’s case, he needs to not only win but look outstanding in the process. If he’s seen struggling against a lightweight opponent like Marquez, that’s almost like a loss.
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