(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Chris Williams: In the last four months, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) has taken a great deal of criticism from boxing fans for his previous performance against Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) from last May.
Fans believe that Mayweather’s skills have eroded and that he’s no longer the same fighter he was 12 months ago in his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Even trainer Freddie Roach has come out of the woodwork, saying repeatedly in the last month that he believes Mayweather’s legs are gone.
Roach is so convinced that Mayweather is a shell of his former self that he’s saying that Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Amir Khan all beat Mayweather at this point.
“People are entitled to their opinions. They are entitled to believe what they want to believe,” Mayweather said. “But when you reach this level that I’m at there are always those taking shots at you. I don’t worry about that. Taking shots at me only comes with the territory. If you want to believe lies or rumors that only make my story better.”
Mayweather went on to say that he’s going to be taking on the bias fans, the bias media and the bias judges in his fight against Maidana tonight. It’s setup perfectly for Mayweather to look good against Maidana and prove the critics wrong tonight in his fight with the Argentinian at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Mayweather puts in a performance similar to the ones he put on in his wins over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Robert Guerrero then Mayweather will be looking really good.
“He’s become the face of boxing and often he is the guy who wears the target on his back,” Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe said. “No matter what he does, people tend to form an opinion, but that comes with the territory.”
Being the face of boxing definitely puts a huge target on Mayweather’s back, to be sure. If Mayweather isn’t perfect every time out, then he takes a lot of heat from the fans. But even when he is perfect, fans are still all over him because they assume that the ease of his win was the result of his opponents being weak rather than due to his talent.
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