By Bob Smith: The simple answer is, yes, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the Greatest of All Time. It is not only his undefeated record, but the caliber of opposition that he has faced, his climb through the boxing weight classes as he defeated champion after champion, future Hall of Famer after future Hall of Famer, and above all his nearly impenetrable defense. I don’t think that he has been genuinely stunned or hurt by a single punch in his entire career, and this more than anything else is a testament to his greatness.
Skeptics and haters will argue that he actually lost to Jose Luis Castillo; that Judah got a knockdown against him; that the Shane Mosley punch hurt him; that he lost to Oscar De La Hoya, blah, blah, blah. They are jealous of his success and envious of his titles.
His rivals in his own time, Arturo Gatti, Zab Judah, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley, Robert Guerrero, Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and so forth, went down to ignominious defeat at his hands. One hesitates to call Juan Manuel Marquez even a rival, as the fight of Floyd with Marquez was extremely one-sided. Yet this same Marquez thoroughly obliterated Manny Pacquiao with a brilliant counter-punch KO to finally end their rivalry. And still people argue that Floyd is “scared” of Pacquiao, that Floyd would get knocked out by Pacquiao, that Pacquiao is the true champion and Floyd is a cherry picker etc., blah, blah blah.
Yet, Floyd’s demonstration that he is the greatest fighter in his own time of course does not translate to the fact that Floyd is the Greatest of All Time. And herein is my thesis: Floyd may not be the Greatest Boxer of All Time, but he is the greatest boxing businessmen of all time.
His favorite business trick is to get a slow, Mexican or Hispanic brawler (Gatti qualifies as this type in an earlier era despite being Italian) to try to catch him and hurt him, then he uses his superior boxing intelligence, ring generalship, speed, and defense to completely outclass the hapless opponent. Let us review the iterations of this formula: Gatti, Baldomir (the archetype of this model), Hatton (a white version of the same type with a large fan base), Victor Ortiz, Cotto (a Hall of Famer but not on Floyd’s level), Guerrero (not just a brawler but fresh off a huge win against Andre Berto), Alvarez, and now Marcos Maidana.
He has also beaten Mexican champions like Juan Manuel Marquez and Oscar de La Hoya, but typically he is more cautious about taking these fights, and while the pay is good, he prefers to face currently popular hard punchers/brawlers and then behave like Jerry with Tom, the Road Runner with Wily E Coyote, and Speedy Gonzalez with his rivals. It is fun, I admit, to watch the quick and wily David defeat the very hyped Goliath who tries so hard yet ends up missing over and over and over again. To repeat, his fight with Carlos Baldomir is an archetype of this.
He is not interested in fighting individuals like James Kirkland, Erislandy Lara, Gennady Golovkin, or Sergio Martinez at 154, not only because they would be competitive fights and he would be naturally smaller, but most importantly because they do not make the most business sense to him. He may well be able to beat all of them, though I think that he would have significant trouble with at least one or two in the above list, but that is besides the point. His goal is not to prove that he is the best boxer in the universe, but to maximize his potential career earnings and legacy, and he has found the best way to do this, and does it quite well.
Thus, I do not view his avoidance of Manny Pacquiao from 2009-present as a symptom of his weakness or cowardice but rather of his business sense. Though he probably would defeat Pacquiao, why take on the risk, and why perhaps encounter a flash knockdown or two on the way to a UD victory when his legacy can be completely pristine and his paychecks very fat when fighting lesser fighters? He has virtually eliminated risk in his decision making. This is true for Canelo also, who though a skilled fighter was mostly a media creation, and at 154 Lara or Kirkland would have been much more dangerous for Mayweather, but do not make near as much business sense.
I think that everyone can agree that he would thoroughly dominate every single boxer not named Pacquiao at either 140 or 147, his natural weight class, and has been able to do this for the past 5-10 years.
ESPN ranks him as the 48th best boxer of all time as of a few years ago. This to me seems rather low. While I am not qualified to speak of boxers before 1970 or so, he is only the second undefeated fighter on the list other than Rocky Marciano, and arguably he is much more accomplished than Marciano, despite the fact that Rocky Marciano is ranked #14. So, an argument can be made this should be a minimum for him on a list like the one given by ESPN when his career is finally done, assuming he continues his current trajectory.
So, in the end, while Floyd Mayweather may not be the greatest boxer of all time, he is a very good one, and is one of the best businessmen in the history of boxing, if not the very best.
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