Will Mayweather Jr. lose for the first time in 2013

By Boxing News - 12/30/2012 - Comments

floyd45By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. has had an incredible boxing career with world titles won in five weight classes, and he’s won the titles without catchweights to ease the way. Mayweather has arguably been the best fighter in boxing for the past 10 years without question, but he’s starting to show signs of fading as a fighter. His legs are gone and he’s become more stationary.

He’s not as fast as once was in terms of hand speed, and he’s getting hit much more than he ever did before. Mayweather will be turning 36 in February, and that’s an age where most fighters that rely on speed start to come apart and lose. Mayweather hasn’t helped himself by sitting out of boxing for two years from 2007 to 2009, and then fighting only once per year from 2009 to 2012.

He’s not nearly active enough to keep his skills sharp and we’re starting to see that in his last few bouts. Mayweather has clearly lost a lot of what he had in the past. The last really good performance from Mayweather came in 2009 when he defeated Juan Manuel Marquez by a lopsided 12 round decision.

Mayweather Jr. will be fighting on May 4th and it’s looking like Robert Guerrero will be the opponent that he faces in this fight. Some boxing fans see this as a mismatch for Mayweather, but I don’t think it will be. Mayweather Jr, might make Guerrero look kind of silly in the early rounds, but Guerrero is the kind of fighter that just keeps coming at you in waves. He’s not going to stop and he’ll put a lot of pressure on the aging Mayweather to either move around more than he’s done in ages or try to match his high work rate.

At this point in Mayweather’s career I don’t think he can match the work rate of someone like Guerrero, who can throw 80 to 100 punches per round for 12 rounds. Mayweather is throwing in the mid-50s per round. He’s going to be getting hit a lot more in a fight against Guerrero, and it might put the judges in the position to where they’ll have to decide whether to give Mayweather more credit for landing far fewer shots per round.

The other fighter that Mayweather could face in 2013 is WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. I don’t see this fight happening 2013 if Mayweather fights Guerrero on May 4th because Mayweather fights only once a year and then goes into hibernation for a year. If Mayweather does choose to fight Alvarez later on in the year, I think this will be a very hard fight for Mayweather and I don’t think he can win it. Without his ability to move, Mayweather will be at Alvarez’s mercy and he’ll likely take a far worse beating against him than he did in the fight with Miguel Cotto.

If Mayweather was thinking clearly, he’d push hard to try and get a fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2013, because both of them are nearing the end of the line and they need to think about cashing out with a big payday while they still have the chance.



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