By Anthony Mason: A lot of people seem to be very impressed by Floyd Mayweather Jr’s 18-years of dominance. Longevity of this sort is impressive to a degree, but when one goes beyond just memorizing and reciting statistics and numbers, it is clear that the 18 years of the 37 year-old Mayweather’s career is not mind-blowing. A lot of other fighters had lost by the time that they got to 37, but they were too busy fighting some of the best competition in boxing history, fighting much more actively than Mayweather, or both.
In 18 years, Floyd has only fought 46 times, including a retirement of over a year. This amounts to between 2-3 fights a year. Compared to those who are truly great, this is hardly impressive. From 1940 to 1951, when Sugar Ray Robinson only suffered one loss, he fought on average 12 times a year. While it took Mayweather 18 years to win 46 fights, Harry Greb surpassed that record in 1919 alone when he went 49-0. And instead of fighting Ortiz or Guerrero caliber opponents, he fought the likes of Billy Miske, Bill Brennan, and Willie Meehan (who defeated Jack Dempsey). Willie Pep fought for 26 years, and accumulated 241 fights. That’s more than twice as much as Pacquiao and Mayweather combined, and it included elite competition like Angott, Saddler, and Burley.
Another truly great boxer, Joe Louis, went 25-0 in the course of 11 years, with all 25 fights being defenses of his heavyweight title, in an era where a title actually meant something, unlike today’s era where belts are handed out to the weakest of so-called “champions”. In only 11 years, Joe Louis’ defenses alone made up more than half the fights, title or non-title, in Floyd’s entire 18-year career. And unlike Floyd, he beat elite opponents the caliber of Schmeling, Conn, and Walcott, whereas none of Floyd’s opponents or title defenses come close to this level.
Now, these fighters all come from an extremely old era of boxing, but it is still important to recognize their vastly superior accomplishments. Professional boxing has been around since the later quarter of the nineteenth century, so 40+ years of the sport is more than enough time for boxing to have become a developed sport with athletes that could compete in any era. It is foolish to claim that simply because they came from an old time, that they would not be able to compete in today’s era. Look at basketball for example. From 1946 to 1990, professional basketball dramatically developed, and no one can deny that the likes of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan, all of whom played great in the 1980s, would dominate the game of basketball today, despite any advances in training or nutrition. Boxing has been around for even longer, so the disparity in skill level had to have plateaued a long time ago.
Let us go ahead a few more years and look at great boxers from more modern eras, as we continue to gradually go through the great eras of boxing. Muhammad Ali was robbed of his prime years when he served a three-year suspension. He didn’t decide to take a three-year vacation/retirement in this time. With the three-year suspension included, Ali fought an average of three times a year for twenty years. Even with a three-year layoff, he fought as often as Mayweather. Not only that, Ali fought extremely impressive competition such as Norton, Frazier, Foreman, Liston, and Young. Floyd doesn’t even have one win that compares to Ken Norton. The twenty years of Ali’s career are filled with vastly superior competition than the 18 years of Floyd Mayweather.
People often wonder how Floyd compares with the Big Four of the 1980s. The truth of the matter is, he doesn’t. Marvin Hagler himself has stated that “(Floyd) is able to win his fights because I don’t think the status of fighters is as great as they were years ago.” Duran reiterates these sentiments, stating that Mayweather would have been ordinary in his era.
Ray Leonard is occasionally criticized for his inactivity and multiple retirements, but in his 40 fights he fought vastly superior competition – beating Benitez, Hearns, and Duran, and moving up in weight to beat Hagler in a fight that is disputed to this day. These opponents in 40 fights are much more impressive than the likes of Corrales or Castillo in 46 fights, neither of whom have beaten an elite fighter.
Hearns was about as active in his career as Mayweather, but his years were much more impressive. He beat the likes of Duran, Benitez, Ray Leonard in their second fight (regardless of what the scorecards said), and lost to the likes of Hagler and Leonard, vastly more impressive competition than past prime opponents like De La Hoya, Cotto, and Mosley.
Hagler fought 67 times over the course of 14 years, and all of his losses were in the very beginning or end of his career, and extremely close and controversial. Roberto Duran in the first 12 years of his career alone put together arguably the greatest lightweight reign of all time, fought over 70 times, and moved up in weight to beat an undefeated Ray Leonard. When Floyd Mayweather can accomplish anything close to that, maybe he can be mentioned in the same sentence. Beating paper champions like Gatti, Ortiz, Guerrero, and Baldomir does not put you in that class.
We can look at even more modern fighters like Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones and see how far behind Floyd is in comparison. Bernard Hopkins came out of prison in 1988 and has been fighting since then. He fights about as often as Floyd, but he beat competition like a prime Trinidad (when Floyd’s biggest names of Cotto, Mosley, and Oscar are all well past their primes) and beat De La Hoya more decisively. De La Hoya was also much more past his prime when he got to Floyd than when he fought Hopkins.
Since Bernard’s loss to Roy Jones, he did not lose again until the age of 40 in 2 decisions that could have gone either way. Floyd would be fortunate to even reach 40 when he ends his career. Hopkins then moved up two classes to dominate Tarver, when Floyd would not even fight Williams or Martinez at one higher weight class of 154. He went on to beat Winky Wright, get robbed against Calzaghe in a fight where Calzaghe hit nothing but air, and in reality beat Jean Pascal twice. His only clear and decisive loss past the age of 40 came against Chad Dawson.
Roy Jones through his first 50 fights (which he accomplished in 14 years, unlike Floyd who will need about 20 years to reach 50) did not have any legitimate losses, the only one being a DQ. Roy beat the likes of Hopkins with a broken right hand easily, when Mayweather attempted to use his hurt shoulder as an excuse for his struggle against Castillo. He then moved up to beat an undefeated James Toney, these two wins alone being greater than anyone on Mayweather’s resume. He went on to beat Mike McCallum, knocked out Griffin in the first round, and went all the way up to heavyweight when he started his career at 154. True, Ruiz was a weak champion, but there is a huge difference in immediately jumping from 175 to heavyweight and going from 130 to 154 over the course of 18 years. Roy Jones’ only legitimate losses came after he became shot from draining back down to 175.
Considering Mayweather’s low activity over the course of 18 years, and the low level of competition he fought – extremely undersized opponents like Marquez, fighters well past their primes like De la Hoya, Cotto, and Mosley, paper champions like Gatti, Ortiz, and Guerrero, or boxers like Hernandez, Judah, Baldomir, Corrales, Castillo, Hatton, Alvarez, and Maidana who have no wins over elite and prime fighters – one would only hope that Mayweather came out undefeated considering how relatively easy his path was. Compound that with his actual loss to Castillo in the first fight, having to dig down deep to beat the likes of Maidana and Castillo in the rematch, nearly getting dropped by an almost 40 year old man in Mosley, having a tough fight against a Cotto faded beyond recognition after his beatdown at the hands of Margarito, and it is clear that Mayweather’s longevity, like his padded record, is a farce. It is impressive to a degree, but a farce nonetheless, considering how much it gets blown out of proportion. It is not remotely enough to be considered the status of an all-time great.
Comments are closed.