My take on Whitaker and Mayweather

It seems that after every Mayweather fight, someone creates a thread asking the question of what the outcome would be if the magic was available to create a prime for prime matchup between Mayweather and Whitaker. I never contributed to any of the threads, because, embarrassingly, I knew very little about Whitaker. The strange thing is, one of the very first major boxing events I ever saw was the 1997 clash between De La Hoya and Whitaker. My father was a huge fan of Oscar and he did the thing he hated to do most and ended ordering that PPV. But outside of the De La Hoya fight, which wasnt an impressive one for Pernell, I only watched his fight with JCC.

I simply took people's word that Pernell was a wizard and a nightmare for any fighter in any generation from welterweight on down.

But in light of the recent fascination with the question of how Whitaker stacks up against Mayweather, I decided to give several of his fights a close look.

I ended up watching the following fights.
1)Whitaker vs Mcgirt I
2)Whitaker Vs Mcgirt II
3)Whitaker Vs Nelson
4)Whitaker Vs Ramirez I
5)Whitaker Vs Ramirez II
6)Whitaker Vs Chavez
7)Whitaker Vs R. Mayweather
8)Whitaker Vs Haugen
9)Whitaker Vs Nazario
10)Whitaker Vs Vazquez
11)Whitaker Vs Hurtado
12)Whitaker Vs Trinidad.

It took me about 5 days to watch these fights, and surely some were better than others. Of course I watched this fights with a particular context in mind: I wanted to come to a determination of how good Whitaker seemed in comparison to all of the fighters I've watched and specifically how does Whitaker stack up against Mayweather.

Here's the conclusion I've come to: Whitaker was in the 99th percentile of boxing ability. In other words, If a thousand people box, only 10 or so will make it to the level of a Whitaker. So that alone leads to the logical extension that Whitaker probably had the skill to match up with Mayweather and make a hell of a technical scrap out of it. But my ultimate judgement is that the best version of Whitaker would likely loose to Mayweather.

What it comes down to is this: the only clear thing that it seems Whitaker has an advantage of Mayweather is the Jab. Whitaker's jab is a serious weapon that made the difference in just about all of his fights from an offensive standpoint.

What I found is that Mayweather seems to do just about all the things that matter in boxing a little better than Pernell. In fact, I'd say that Mayweather turned out to be an improvement on Whitaker and showed the boxing world the extent to where pure boxing could be taken. Before Mayweather it appears to me that Whitaker was the embodiment of the pure, slick boxer. Anyway, here's a rough breakdown of the two.

Power: Mayweather>Whitaker
Speed: Mayweather>Whitaker
Stamina: Mayweather>Whitaker
Ring IQ: Mayweather>Whitaker
Overall quality of offense: Mayweather>Whitaker
Defense: Mayweather>Whitaker
Durability/ability to absorb damage: Mayweather>Whitaker
Footwork: Whitaker>Mayweather

These categories are a little rigid and dont really delve into the nuances that seemed apparent to me. For example I say that Mayweather has a better overall offensive package. But Whitaker is a little better off the Backfoot and has a slightly more versatile and tricky body attack. On the other hand I think Mayweather's counter fighting abilities are significantly better than Whitaker's and so are Floyd's tactics for fighting in the pocket. Whitaker avoided the pocket like the plague in alot of the earlier fights I saw.

I also want to make an extensive note on defense, as this was one of the main issues I saw being brought up in the threads that compared the two. What I think is this: if I were a boxer, putting my health and brain cells on the line, I would choose Mayweather's defense. Whitaker has moments where he looks supernatural in his defense and it is really pleasing to the eyes, but there were to many times when his defense backfired based on the fights I saw. Whitaker's defense was almost improvisational and intuitive whereas Mayweathers defense seems to be worked out ahead of time with a predetermined reaction to all offensive attacks. Mayweather's defense just flat out seems to be more reliable, organized, and impenetrable than Pernell's defense.

So what do I think happens in a fight between these two in their primes? I'd say the fight takes place at 140 and I think it would be tightly contested in the early rounds. I can see Whitaker giving Mayweather similar problems to the one's Judah gave him. I could see Whitaker beating Mayweather to the punch on certain occasions. I could see Whitaker Making Mayweather miss and look foolish in a way we didn't think possible for a guy like Mayweather.

But here's what I can't see happening: I can't see Mayweather allowing Whitaker to coast and find a rhythm that lasts for round after round. Whitaker it seems to me was a rhythm fighter at heart. Rarely was he forced to make adjustments. His plan A was almost always good enough. Against Mayweather, his plan A would be good for three rounds and then Perhell would have to set traps he's never set before in order to catch Floyd in the later rounds. And that's when Whitaker would drown. In the later rounds. Floyd would scrape the bottom of the barrel and find the slimmest of offense against Whitaker, whereas Whitaker would scrape the bottom of the barrel and find nothing.