By Jim Dower: WBC minimumweight champion Wanheng Menayothin (50-0, 18 KOs) showed how easy it is to accumulate a 50-0 record like Floyd Mayweather Jr. did in defeating #1 WBC Leroy Estrada (16-3, 6 KOs) by a 5th round knockout on Wednesday to hit win No.50 at the Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand.
The 32-year-old Thailand fighter Menayothin knocked the over-matched 23-year-old Panamanian Estrada down five times in the fight before the fight was finally halted in round 5. Estrada was knocked down two times in round 3, two times in round 4 and then another time in round 5 before the referee Jay Nady stopped the contest.
This was Menayothin’s 9th successful title defense of his WBC 105 lb. title since capturing the strap in November 2014 in defeating Oswaldo Novoa by a 9th round stoppage.
During Menayothin’s four-year reign as the WBC minimumweight champion, he’s mixed in 5 NON-title fights against badly over-matched opposition in stay busy fights. Most world champions don’t do take a lot of non-title fights once they become world champion, but Menayothin has done it four times in beating these fighters:
– Jack Amisa (21-45-2)
– Jaysever Abcede (15-8)
– Silem Serang (11-16-1)
– Edo Anggoro (7-6)
– Ardi Buyung (2-6)
It’s unheard of for a world champion to take 5 non-title fights in 4 years as a world champion. Nowadays world champions tend to fight one or two non-title fights during their time as champions. When the champions do take non-title fights, they mostly face world class opposition. Menayothin has taken a far different approach in taking over half as many non-title fights as he has in defending his title. Menayothin has defended his title 9 times in the last four years.
With the way that Menayothin takes a lot of easy non-title fights against journeyman level opposition, he’ll likely easily beat Mayweather’s 50-0 record and quickly put together the best record in boxing history. However, with Menayothin’s approach to padding his record with lots of fights against journeyman level opposition in non-title fights, he’s not likely to be viewed as the greatest of all time (GOAT) when his career is over with. Some boxing fans are saying that Menayothin’s record padding approach to his career is similar to what Mayweather did in hand-picking beatable guys like Conor McGregor, Marcos Maidana, Andre Brerto and many more record-padding fights.
What was troubling about Mayweather recently breaking former heavyweight world champion Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record last year was that he did it in beating 0-0 boxing novice McGregor, who was making his pro debut in their fight in August 2017 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. What’s interesting is the Nevada State Athletic Commission sanctioned the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight as a real pro fight, meaning that the fight would count on Mayweather’s record. A lot of boxing fans felt the Nevada Commission should have rejected such a mismatch, as Mayweather is a former multi-division world champion and McGregor had never fought before in the sport. McGregor is a UFC fighter, which is an entirely different sport.
It’s unclear why the Nevada Commission sanctioned the Mayweather-McGreogr fight, because it arguably should have been an exhibition match and not a pro fight. But if the Nevada Commission had rejected the fight, then there’s no telling whether Mayweather would have taken the fight out of Nevada and staged it in another state that would sanction the fight. With all the money the Mayweather-McGregor fight pulled in, the Nevada Commission would have shot themselves in the foot if they had chosen not to sanction the match. It’s a good thing McGregor wasn’t hurt badly by Mayweather, because that would have looked bad in the aftermath, especially with the UFC star making his pro debut in boxing against a superstar in the sport.
Hopefully boxing isn’t reduced to champions padding their records with lots of non-title fights in race to building a 50-0 record against weak opposition like we’re seeing with Menayothin. With the match-making that’s being done for Menayothin, he could easily get to 60-0 soon or even 70-0. Without Menayothin taking on good opposition, his accomplishment won’t mean as much. It’ll just show what a fighter can do when he’s taking a lot of non-title fights against journeyman fighters. The way Menayothin is being matched up, the sky is the limit how many victories he can accumulate before he’s eventually beaten one day.
