Mayweather is not in the same league as Duran/Lenord,Hagler,Hearns

Of course he isn't.

Can you imagine how much ducking Floyd would have done in their era? His resume would have been paper thin!

Hagler @ 160
Hearns & Sugar Ray @ 147
Pryor @ 140

That's not even mentioning Duran, Curry etc.

He'd be fighting nobodies.

 

You say he isn't in their class, yet you provide no reason with any substance as to why you feel he isn't. You say he doesn't take risk yet he's taking risk his whole career. They seem to think he is in that class.

 

Before he fought Canelo, " he'll never fight Canelo, he's a coward, Canelo is young and tough, Floyd is ducking Canelo... After Canelo, " Floyd cherry picked him, Canelo is slow and flat footed, Canelo was too young"..... Before Manny, " Floyd is a coward, manny will beat Floyd regardless of his age, manny will still penetrate Floyd's defense, Floyd will never fight him", after manny, " doesn't matter, Manny is past his prime, Floyd still a coward..... Before maidana fight was announced, when Floyd was going to fight khan, " Floyd is cherry picking khan, khan has no chin ", after he announces it will be maidana, " Floyd us ducking khan, khan is too fast for floyd".. After maidana fight, " Floyd will never give maidana a rematch, maidana won the fight" after rematch , " Floyd ducked khan, cherry picked maidana"

 

There weren't any ATG's (or even at or near prime HOF's) other than Pacquiao, for Mayweather to test himself against.
He also chose to retire conveniently rather than fighting the top names who were actually stylistic threats i.e Williams, Margarito, prime Pacquiao.

 

Why does Floyd ALWAYS have to use a stipulation?

Canelo - c/w
Manny - drug test
Maidana - gloves

For two of those fights he was backed into a corner and had to make them.

Do you honestly think he'd have fought Canelo or Manny if he didn't have people like Showtime investing in him and WANTING a return on their money?

 

That's interesting you mentioned those specific fighters considering FLoyd was a FW coming into the pros and campaigned half his career at the lighter weights.

He only jumped to his 4th and 5th weight divisions for the big PPV paydays.

Well, I'll play this game, let's say Leonard decided to actually campaign north of 147 for longer than a few fights (he only left his original weightclass 7 times,) how would he fare against ATG LHW fighters such as ARchie Moore? That's a fair H2H matchup to make right, considering Leonard campaigned up in that weight class at one point.

It's a stupid, silly argument to try and take a smaller fighter and pair them up with the best fighters in the history of a weight division that just so happen to be 4 divisions north from where the other guy started.


I got a much better question: why didn't the great Hawk Pryor ever move up to 147 lbs or how about the venerable Marvin Hagler, why did he never move up even one weight class? Hagler has some great wins on his resume, but lets not forget that Hearns, Duran and Leonard all came from at least 2 divisions below Marvin to fight him. Where's Hagler's great reign in multiple divisions?

It's an awful double standard on ESB, but it's the norm.

 

He's in the same league as them, I don't think he'd beat any of them but he's definitely in the same league.

 

Duran was a freak and that's why he's ranked so highly because he campaigned well north of his actual weight and was seriously competitive regardless, Hagler was a career middleweight, Leonard and Hearns did not win belts below welterweight, Mayweather is a small welterweight at best who has never weighed above 152, Golovkin would be drained at 154 so no thanks. By all means if GGG has a fight at 154 and looks decent, or if Floyd goes above 154, then it's a duck. Yes Mayweather should fight GGG at 160 if he wants a shout at 'TBE' but he obviously feels like his achievements speak for themselves without an insane risk like that.

 

The Williams and Margarito fights are just inane to even speak about.

Some people make them out to be P4P stalwarts that have their tickets already stamped to Canastota. They were good fighters but one was exposed for being a cheater and the other one was actually looking somewhat punch drunk by 2010 (there was a clear decline in Williams' skills from 2007 to 2010.)

Whatever his reasons for retiring were, fighting and beating those 2 guys would've done nothing for his overall resume. He'd still have his naysayers trying their best to denigrate his achievements. And honestly, I'd favor him over both guys although I readily admit the WIlliams fight would be a tough one based off of the Punisher's high punch volume. It's pretty incredible how many punches he can throw out their per round, especially given his size.

 

Also, he fought the best of this era, you can slate Pacquiao's resume just as much as Mayweather regarding timing for example so don't give me that rubbish. What makes you think he wouldn't fight the best of any era, because he didn't fight Margarito or go up and fight a middleweight It's ridiculous, give the man his respect, I don't care if you don't like him, you can't argue with his CV if you critique everybody else's with the same intensity around him today.

 

I guess that's why Duran is ranked so highly. He came from the same weight class that FLoyd Mayweather did, 130 lbs. He was a great long standing LW champion who could've retired back in the 70's before the turn of the decade and still be considered an ATG.

Why he's ranked so highly (personally in my top 10 all time,) is because what he was able to do in the 80's. He didn't fare too well against the top guys at 147 and 154- he lost to Leonard (twice, once later at a higher weight,) knocked out by Hearns, and lost a competitive decision to Benitez. At 160, he dared to be great again and lost a competitive decision to Hagler (one of Hagler's worst performances of the decade.) His big wins were against a green Davey Moore who had around 14 pro fights under his belt when he met Duran, and his other big win was against Blade Barkley at MW, which is an excellent win.

He had some troubles once he got up to 147, but he took on pretty much everyone so you have to commend him for that and it's the reason why I have him ranked even higher than Ray Leonard in my all time list.

Now Duran would be a fair matchup fpor someone like Floyd since they both started at the same weight class. Same goes for guys like Chavez Sr, Sal Sanchez, Arguello and Azumah Nelson. These were the standout fighters at the lighter weights during that time, and guys that are naturally around the same size as MAyweather.

 

because he's fighting guys like robert guerrero and victor ortiz. i can name one fighter from the 80s off the top of my head who is better than every single person floyd fought(curry, norris etc). and they're borderline ATGs to most people.

 

But he's fighting other guys outside Ortiz, Guerrero, Berto and Baldomir, none of them are atrocious opponents all things considered, they're just 'alright'. Can't fight a beast every single fight and there literally is a lack of A* fighters in this era anyway.

 

thats not the point the point is he fought and beat them