By William Mackay: It’s going to be really interesting to see if Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s) still considers himself better than Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali if he loses tonight against Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO’s). You would assume that once Mayweather has been beaten his ego would equalize out to reality and he would start seeing that maybe he isn’t the best fighter in the world, but you can’t be too sure.

Mayweather could hold onto the thought that he’s been than Ali and Robinson, even in defeat. Mayweather said on the HBO Mayweather-Mosley 24/7 series, “I got respect for Sugar Ray Robinson. I’ve got respect for Muhammad Ali, but I’m a man just like they’re men. I put on my pants just like they put on their pans. What makes them any better than I am? Because they fought a thousand fights? In my era, it’s totally different. Its pay-per-view now, so things change…Like I said, Muhammad Ali is one hell of a fighter, but Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the best.”

Ali didn’t fight that many more fights than Mayweather. The difference is Ali missed four prime years of his career because he failed to enlist in the Armed services when he was drafted. He missed a lot of fights. Robinson, on the other hand, did end up fighting an enormous amount of times and Mayweather is correct about boxing being different now because of PPV. But that still doesn’t explain why Mayweather has failed to take on some fighters he could have to prove himself more during his career. Mayweather never fought the likes of Kostya Tszyu, Manny Pacquiao, Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams and Andre Berto. And he didn’t face Mosley until now, when Mosley is 38-years-old and starting to show signs of slowing down.

The question is: Does Mayweather believe that he’s better than Robinson and Ali or is he just saying those things to generate interest in himself and the fight with Mosley? It’s hard to tell, because Mayweather is often bragging about how good of a fighter he is and it’s not hard to imagine that he might really believe that he’s better than Robinson and Ali. Whatever the case, Mayweather has a ton of more work to do to achieve what they’ve accomplished in the boxing ring. Mayweather can’t fight only 40+ over a mixed bag of competition and then proclaim himself the best. It’ll be a lot harder to look at Mayweather with a straight face if he gets beaten by Mosley tonight and he still persists with calling himself better than Ali and Robinson. It would be sad to see Mayweather still talking about being better than Ali and Robinson in the face of a bad defeat from Mosley. The worst case scenario would be Mayweather getting battered and then stopped by Mosley, yet persisting with claiming he’s better than the two greats.