By Chris Williams: Recently Floyd Mayweather Jr. complained about not being as well liked in the United States as he should be, saying that if he was from another country he would be more well liked my boxing fans. The problem that seems to be holding Mayweather back from achieving the status of a fighter like Oscar De La Hoya mainly has to do with Floyd’s defensive counter punching style of fighting.
That’s the type of style that interests few fans because they’d rather see fighters that slug it out and actively engage. De La Hoya, although not a slugger, he liked to go after his opponents during his career and wasn’t afraid to get bruised or cut up by mixing it up. Mayweather isn’t that type of fighter and never has.
Mayweather has always been a defensive fighter, the type that moves a lot on the outside, uses his jab and lands pot shots. That style may have kept Mayweather winning fights but it sure hasn’t impressed a lot of boxing fans.
Mayweather Jr. might be a great fighter, but he doesn’t excite boxing fans the way that Manny Pacquiao does. And the reason is because Pacquiao is a slugger, not afraid to let his hands go and someone that gives boxing fans their monies worth each time that he goes out there. Mayweather wins, but it’s boring to a lot of boxing fans.
It’s certainly boring to me because Mayweather takes few chances and fights mostly in a safety first manner. I know Mayweather doesn’t owe anything to boxing fans and doesn’t have to try and look good. However, at the same token, I don’t have to watch someone that does the minimum to get by.
If you got to a restaurant and you’re service and food is merely adequate and not great. Would you want to come back to that place if you had other options? I wouldn’t. The restaurant might have done their job, served you some editable food without making you wait a long time, but if it’s not a real good experience, then you probably won’t want to go back.
This is how I feel about Mayweather. He does what he has to get the victory, boring as it is much of the time, and leaves boxing fans dissatisfied with his performance. He may not owe anything to anyone to risk his neck by trying to look good, but then again people like me won’t see him fight if he’s boring.
Does that make sense? I’m not going to pay money to watch a fighter that bores me to tears when I can see a more exciting fight for free on ESPN. I don’t care if they don’t have the big name that Mayweather has. If they fight hard, are willing to mix it up and not run around the ring in circles, that’s all I care about.
Another reason Mayweather isn’t more popular is because he screwed up by retiring for two years just when he was starting to get popular. That was a really dumb move on Mayweather’s part. He had fought two consecutive big money fights against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton, and appeared to have established himself finally as one of the big stars in boxing.
But what does Mayweather do? He decides to retire for two years. In boxing, two years is like a lifetime, because many of the boxing fans that Mayweather had won over, moved on and started following other fighters like Pacquiao, who gives a far more entertaining fight than Mayweather in my view.
As such, boxing fans found that Pacquiao wasn’t afraid to engage and was a fighter that went out looking to take his opponent’s heads off. So after two years away from the sport, Mayweather decides that he’s going to make a comeback, but unfortunately a lot of his fans have moved over to the arguably more exciting Pacquiao.
I can’t blame them for doing this, because Pacquiao is 100% entertainment. He doesn’t take the safe route and just to win. Pacquiao wants to impress his fans by going for a knockout as early as possible.
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