By Paul Ward: It is tough to comprehend how someone as accomplished as Floyd Mayweather Jr. is continually bashed by boxing fans and some critics. Mayweather is not only boxing’s highest paid athlete but he is the highest paid athlete period. A person does not just wake up one day and get offered $250 million dollars for 30 months of work for no good reason.
Is this negativity towards Mayweather’s undeniably spectacular career out of jealousy or naivety? Most people say things along the line of “Mayweather picks and chooses bums” or “he only fights who he knows he can beat,” in my book that’s called intelligence, but does he really only fight bums? For the sake of space, let’s leave out the details of Mayweather’s extensive history of ruining fighter’s careers and let’s focus on his most recent bouts.
Let’s start with Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, a fighter that had hispanic and Mexican fans hailing him as the one who would dethrone Floyd. Of course, there was also the nonbelievers who said he was a bum; well this bum happened to be the mandatory challenger, a title that is not easy to achieve. In the end, Mayweather disposed of him, only to make him look like a bum, then all of the talkers came out in full force, ranting and raving that Guerrero was a nobody. They disregarded Mayweather’s brilliant performance against the WBC championship belt holding Guerrero.
Then there was Miguel Cotto who had just come off of arguably his most impressive performance to date against Antonio Margarito. Mayweather went up to 154 lbs and fought Cotto when he appeared to be unstoppable, but there were the naysayers again crying, “Cotto is past his prime” or “If he would of fought Mayweather three years earlier he would’ve destroyed him.” The excuses always surface after Floyd annihilates his opponent, and it’s the same people who were saying that the opposition would win that turn around and make the excuses. The list is quite impressive whether you believe it or not: Victor Ortiz in his prime, Juan Marquez who destroyed Pacquiao after getting slaughtered by Floyd, the undefeated Ricky Hatton, a prime Zab Judah, the legendary Oscar de la Hoya, and who can forget the seemingly unbeatable Diego Corrales.
The list goes on and on, yet, Mayweather still gets no credit. Whether you love Floyd or hate him, a true boxing fan can recognize that he is the real deal. There’s a reason Floyd is the highest paid athlete. There’s a reason he’s gone undefeated for so long. And there’s a reason why every boxer in and around the welterweight division wants a piece of him. Boxing is 50% ability and 50% intelligence and Floyd has proven that he has all of both.
The boxing fans that do not know boxing as well as they think will continue bad mouthing this great fighter, but at the end of the day his resume says it all. All of those who say that they don’t buy Floyd’s fights probably pre-order even before his biggest fans do. They sit there biting their nails as Floyd makes outstanding fighters look like worthless amateurs, and once they lose, these “boxing fans” take to the internet with their excuses. The excuses simply show ignorance and a lack of knowledge of the great sport of boxing.
Comments are closed.