I was talking to my friend and he said Floyd was a big enough star back in the days of when Oscar.. Mosley.. Felix.. Ike etc etc were ruling the roost at ww.. That if he moved up he could've gotten a big fight with either of these guys... Is this true? Obviously Floyd comes from a fighting family and had a solid amateur career.. so clearly he was on the radar of most boxing people in the know.. but at that point was he a biggest enough name to get those kinda fights. More importantly, I don't think Floyd could've moved up to fight say Oscar when Oscar was still an active fighter. My impression was that he hadn't grown into his body yet. My friend says.. he was talking about getting big pay day fights with these guys and could've moved up if he choose to. My opinion is.. he could've moved up and fought KT before he retired when he was beasting it.. I blame him for avoiding that fight.. but could he really have moved up to fight Oscar at a particular point when Oscar was still good i.e. 2 or three years before he actually fought him
He gradually moved up the weight divisions. It would not have been a good idea to jump up 2 to 3 divisions at once. At least I don't think so. It's not like he was particularly big for those divisions anyway. Not a big weight-cutter. When some fighters move up in weight, it seems that they are just cutting less weight. He talked about wanting to fight Oscar in 2003 when he fought Sosa at 135, around the same time Oscar fought Campas at 154. He wasn't gonna get that fight then, it was pretty obvious. He also wasn't a big enough name to really have much leverage to get a big fight with someone 2 to 3 divisions above him. Your friend is off-base. Up until 2003 when Mayweather was publicly talking about wanting to fight DLH, the only talk I heard about a fight between the 2 was Bob Arum saying "Mayweather could go up to 147 and beat Oscar" after Mayweather had just beaten Corrales at 130, in early 2001. And that was likely just because Arum and DLH were feuding.
This strikes me as odd though.. how could he not be a big enough name though... I disagreed with my friend about Floyd being big enough or able to move up to get some of those fights. What I kinda agreed with him on.. was that Floyd was a big enough name. I mean the guy was talked about as a Prodigy since he was a kid... he came from a fighting family with champions.. he had an excellent amateur career... How could he not be a big enough name?
Excellence and popularity have very little to do with one another. Floyd didn't even headline a ppv until the Gatti fight. In the time frame you're talking about Mayweather was already consist p4p guy but he was way down the popularity list. Hamed, who was about the same weight, was considered a much bigger star. Had he won a gold medal things might have been different. As it was he had nothing like the star power necessary to demand a big fight with established stars 3 divisions bigger who were much bigger box office draws than he was.
With hindsight, those would have been competitive fights, because Floyd has proven to be a special fighter. To jump from lightweight to welterweight or junior middleweight and face an Oscar de la Hoya or Shane Mosley is unheard of. Even for a prodigy. Duran held the lightweight title for what, seven years and forty fights, and even he took a year and a fight with Palomino to get ready. He was a prodigy, but not a big draw, or else de la Hoya and Mosley would have been chomping at the bits. Look at this little guy with no punch, we can make a bundle at little risk. It would have made no sense, and not enough cents.
If you're going to start a thread about "Floyd in his younger days" you'de better add the last name to clarify. I was thinking Patterson.
No, being from Grand Rapids I had a close enough vantage point to Floyd's career to say this is categorically untrue. During the Oscar/Shane/Ike/Tito era, Floyd was viewed as a petulant, basket case prodigy who was only really embraced by hard core purists. Floyd was brilliant one night (Corrales, Chavez, Hernandez) and would stink the joint out another (Sosa, Hernandez). Alsohe used to constantly put his foot in his mouth with outrageous statements. Eventually Floyd relocated his primary base from Grand Rapids to Las Vegas and he started getting in less legal trouble. Then, beginning with his win over N'dou he started gaining mainstream traction and jumping weight classes. So, could he have gotten those fights? Not likely. Could he have won? Probably not. He was still undersized.
