By Raj Parmar: Top pound for pound boxing star Floyd Mayweather (46-0, 26 KO’s) is definitely not new to criticism of his boxing style with constant allegations that his fights are not exciting. Back in 2006, after outpointing welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir, Floyd famously got into an argument in the ring with HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant after Merchant noted that fans left the arena during the fight and were booing Mayweather due to how boring the fight was.

Even more recent, Marcos Maidana’s trainer Robert Garcia went on a scathing attack on Floyd during the California pre-fight press conference to promote the Mayweather-Maidana rematch. Garcia targeted Floyd’s fighting style and said that when Floyd watches any of his fights with his kids, they likely can’t stay awake past the third round.

Despite the countless attacks on his boxing style, Floyd has become the largest pay per view attraction in the sport over the past seven years. His wins over Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Victor Ortiz and Miguel Cotto in past years were definitely not boring fights and his pay per view buys were consistently over 1 million from 2007 to 2012.

In 2013 however, Floyd replaced his uncle Roger Mayweather as head trainer with his father Floyd Mayweather Sr. Roger encourages Floyd to be aggressive while Floyd Senior is more insistent on Floyd staying on defense and taking as little punishment as possible.

Therefore Floyd’s wins over Robert Guerrero and Saul Alvarez in his last two fights were not the most exciting fights due in large part to Floyd Senior’s defensive philosophy ingrained on his son. I believe this may have contributed to the reportedly less than spectacular pay per view buys generated for the first clash with Maidana, as Floyd’s prior two wins before Maidana were not very fan friendly.

Floyd did not stick and move as much against Maidana as he did with Guerrero and Alvarez, and openly admitted he did not follow all his father’s defensive instructions during the fight. Floyd may know as well that his defensive performances, while dominating, may slowly contribute to lower interest in seeing him fight.

As he aims to definitively beat Maidana in September, it will be interesting to see if he resorts to the same style that virtually shut out Guerrero and Alvarez or lets his hands go and steps into offensive mode against Maidana.