(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Mr. Pennington: Gifted-Endowed with great natural ability, intelligence or talent. That is the definition for gifted, this thought came to me form a conversation I had with a friend. I asked “Do you think people like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Julio Caesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King were gifted”. My friend’s response was “no, those people did what came natural to them”.
At the time of the conversation I’m sure my friend had no idea what the exact definition of gifted was, as you can see the word “Natural ability”, would mean in theory he was right, they did do what came naturally for them. My question was, did they have extra, extra character, ability to preserve, courage, given to them especially. We have identified genius through measure of IQ, that alone tells me that some are given abilities in abundance. We all have intelligence, but some are, dare I say, “gifted.”
Over Mayweather’s career I have been a skeptic, unsure if a fighter could possibly be this confident in real life.
I had accepted the display of confidence from Floyd over the years as part of the show, I figured even Super Man doubled as a regular human, who’s Floyd not to feel human emotions like fear, and nerves. But as I have watched more over time, with today’s access to fighters with things like All Access, 24/7 etc., you are able to get a better feel for fighters than we would have 20 years ago.
I think back to the 24/7 episode leading to the Hatton fight, Floyd was asked while doing the interview with his mother “are you at all worried about Ricky”, They both looked at each other and starting laughing, genuinely. That was the first time I thought to myself “maybe, just maybe this kid is really that sure of himself”. Time passed, Mayweather continued to win showing no doubt about who he believed to the best leading into ever fight.
I then stumbled across a video on YouTube featuring the out spoken Angel Garcia. Not looking for anything other than entertainment and maybe a good laugh, I began watching interviews with Angel commenting on other fighters. Angel was asked with Danny standing next to him how he thinks Danny would fare versus Floyd. Angel who is usually demonstrative in voicing his confidence in Danny’s ability said “Well Floyd’s different, he’s gifted”.
I found it strange that Angel would give such a high praise to an opponent Danny could possibly be facing within the next year. What I found most interesting is that it seemed so sincere, didn’t seem he felt the need to discredit a possible opponent as is the custom.
Next was a comment made by 50 cent, it’s been well documented the break in the merge between Floyd and 50 Cent. No one is 100% sure why the two friends/business partners decided to part ways, but 50 has made it clear that he no longer is a backer of Mayweather.
50 went on ESPN’s First Takes and was asked a series of question pertaining to the past negotiations between Mayweather and Pacquiao. 50, thou never being totally decisive in his response, gave the overwhelming impression that Floyd was indeed for some reason unwilling to fight Pacquiao. 50 was then asked who does he think would win a fight between Floyd and Pacquiao, 50 responded “Floyd”, then asked why he thinks Mayweather would win, “Floyds gifted”.
This article has not been written to persuade you to believe what I think will be the outcome on September 14th; truth is I’m not certain. This article was written to provoke thought. For the sake of argument, let’s say in every generation there is a special athlete. If we consider the last 30-40 years of boxing, Ali handed the torch to SRL, then Leonard handed the torch to Chavez. Of course in this time there were plenty of fantastic fighters, but I’m referencing those who transcended the sport. And since Chavez, we have had DLH and Mayweather, Oscar time has came and went, Mayweather’s still the last of that generation. I wonder, is the torch now being passed to the next special athlete of the new generation in Canelo Alvarez. One thing is sure, Floyd’s time will certainly come to an end, the question is when, and will it be by the hands of the, dare I say, “Gifted” Canelo Alvarez.
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