By Babatis Banda: One statement by a blogger on one of the news items caught my eye, and I felt it should not go away without comment. ‘You can only compare a Mercedes to another Mercedes’ so the statement went, and this was in reference to one Floyd Mayweather Jnr. Truly, you cannot add an orange to a banana and hope to get two oranges or two bananas, rather, what you get are two fruits.
This to me clearly brought out the irony of comparisons, comparisons of Muhammad Ali against Floyd Mayweather junior. We all know that Ali was great, but if I may ask…is it a crime for one to believe he possesses better skill than Ali? Is it a detestable thing to think that another great can exist side by side with Ali? Well, the statement made it very clear, Ali was special in his own way, and Floyd is definitely special…but in his own way. It goes without saying that Ali fought in an era where he symbolized more than a boxer, he was politics, he was religion, he was the cocky Clay turned Ali the Moslem. There was certainly much more outside of boxing than was inside of it.
Can you compare Floyd to any other boxer? Well, there is no straight forward answer to such a seemingly, simple but value laden question. Personally, I would apply the Mercedes paradox to answer it. First, we all know that Floyd is one of the so many other boxers and so, he is, like everybody else, a boxer. The comparisons of Floyd start and ends at this point, beyond that then one has to have the unique talents he possesses.
These are mostly none contestable and I will try to mention as many as would come to mind…He is most of the time defined as a defensive maestro, an in-form Floyd has fast hands, reflexes of a viper, as they say and is extremely agile. He is a fast thinker, known to adapt to all styles of opponents, offers a hundred per cent concentration to events in the ring, he paces himself according to the type of fighter he is facing, has a superb left hook (now popularly known as the check-hook). He is so efficient and accurate such that he never goes into the common swings boxers engage in when frustrated. Floyd is also a master of frustration outside and inside the ring. Outside the ring, he never misses an opportunity to talk about the luck of skills of his opponents, and inside the ring, he rarely, almost never presents himself for the taking, he rarely gets hit…actually he detests getting hit. In summary, he is smart. Anybody with all these qualities and more?…any body?…..
Hear me, Floyd does not rely on a single factor, like most boxers do…power and endurance, Floyd relies on a whole array of rare skill. To me, this makes Floyd a Mercedes; you can only compare Floyd to the standards he sets for himself. I honestly feel, no boxer today, can beat an in-form Floyd, they can dance with him in the tangle but with always the same result, at least for a few more years to come.
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