(Photo credit: Naoki Fukoda) By John F. McKenna (McJack): Unbeaten superstar World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) has been surprisingly respectful of World Boxing Association (WBA) light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) during the lead up to Saturday nights big fight at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
Boxing fans and “Money” Mayweather’s diehard followers have become accustomed to him berating, trash talking and insulting his opponents as he did last September before he took on the hapless former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz.
No one would argue with the premise that Mayweather is an expert at self promotion and arguably in a class with the highly revered Muhammad Ali. When then Cassius Clay showed up at public events berating heavyweight champion Sonny Liston he not only berated him, but used poetry to do it. He took it to the next level when he began picking the round in which his opponent would fall. Liston later confided that he thought Cassius was crazy and was left wondering what he would do next.
As was the case with Muhammad Ali, there is a method to “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s tactics. And to a large degree he has been successful in getting inside the head of his opponents.
There are many boxing observers who suggest that the inexperienced Victor Ortiz was beaten before he ever entered the ring for the Mayweather fight.
The trash talk Mayweather engages in serves two purposes. It generates interest in the party engaging in the trash talk and thus brings more people in to watch his fights. Second, the trash talk gets inside the head of his opponent, frequently disrupting his game plan.
Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye was successful at trash talking his way into a heavyweight title shot against WBA/IBF/WBO/IBO and Ring Magazine heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July. And chances are Haye will land a title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko without having another fight since his defeat.
“Money” Mayweather is a master at the game of trash talk. He knows when to talk trash and when not to. Like a baseball pitcher throwing a change up, Floyd altered his game plan against Miguel Cotto. While everyone was expecting Mayweather to talk trash to Cotto, he laid back and instead spoke of Miguel as being “a warrior” and a fighter who in reality was undefeated despite the two official losses on his record.
It was clear to Mayweather that even if the boxing fighters and fans had not caught on, he did not need to trash talkem Cotto. Miguel is already a huge underdog and if Mayweather resorted to humiliate him as is normally the case in the lead up to his fights the odds would swing more heavily against Cotto. The idea is to make boxing fans believe Miguel has enough of a chance at winning on Saturday night to make them want to pay to see it on Pay Per View (PPV). Only time will tell if has succeeded.
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