Floyd Mayweather takes swipe at Muhammad Ali while ranking greatest boxers

Great post agre 100%

 

Who do you think would have been better to prove himself against, then?

Yeah, but there are precious few that have. And several of them started facing world class opponents rather late.

 

In terms of boxing skill they were better though. The only reason Frazier and Foreman are lorded as greats is because Ali lost to Frazier. Frazier made shedloads of defensive mistakes and beat Ali because of Ali's lack of stamina and power

 

Think Frazier and Foremans accomplishments speak for themselves. Frazier had an odd style but it worked for him. Those two alone as far as accomplishments were better then anyone Floyd beat (I don’t count an old Pac).

 

Literally any of the big names at 147 or 154. What kind of bizarre request is to ask a fighter who calls you out to beat another fighter? Thurman the #1 contender for the WBA I believe and Floyd told him to beat Errol Spence. Golovkin says he'd like the fight and Floyd tells him to beat Andre Ward. Amir Khan fights on his undercard and won a poll Floyd put up but he picks Maidana and says Khan needs to earn his shot...which is strange given that Khan had actually beaten Maidana. He could have fought Kell Brook for the last IBF belt and become the first undisputed welterweight champion in 10 years (which would be a great historical/legacy event especially because there were approximately 0 undisputed champion in any division for years).

He named dropped Danny Garcia multiple times but made no effort to make the fight. He could have fought Lara at 154 or Andrade or Charlo, any of those wins would have gotten him HUGE respect. Nobody was expecting him to fight everybody, but having even 2 or 3 of those above mentioned names would have put him in top 50 of all time discussions. It would have been similar to when Roy Jones had beaten John Ruiz.

See the thing is it's not like Floyd had an aggressive come forward plodding style or that he'd suffered major injuries, wars, or had a bunch of stoppage losses. He was in phenomenal shape with relatively little damage for a boxer in his 30's. He has less excuses than literally anyone for not trying for one last hurrah.

 

This is not true. Frazier had a great resume even without Ali. He was a gold medalist and he cleaned out the division having crushed Mathis, Ellis, Quarry, plus wins over Bonavena, Chuvalo, Machen, etc.

He did not have horrible defense, his head movement frustrated Ali and his block was good for fending off straight punches. No one was better than Frazier at forcing their way inside and making the opponent fight at his pace.

Foreman was also a gold medalist and destroyed 2 prime top 5 guys in the division in Frazier and Norton. He also smashed Lyle, Chuvalo, wepner, scrap iron Johnson, Peralta, ledoux.

Those are both superb resumes and both had more skill than they're given credit for.

 

I don't think it really realistic that he should have faced GGG at that stage, but the WWs you mention all seemed to have good cases to be ahead of Maidana.

Maybe it's hindsight that makes Maidana into an interesting challenge, but even before it would seem that he had the style to trouble Floyd a bit.

And I agree with you that Floyd needed to challenge himself more to be seen as the the GOAT p4p. Probably also to be viewed as greater than Ali, but that's closer of course.

 

I'm comparing skillset, rather than looking at resume.

Frazier did have a wide open defense. He liked blocking punches with his chin. Yes he had head movement but it wasn't consistent and he got hit allot. Ali lit him up for the first half of their first fight. Bonavena knocked him down. Quarry landed the kitchen sink on him. Foreman bounced him off the canvas so many times that you'd be forgiven for confusing Joe with a basket ball

They all had good resumes granted

 

Surely DLH, Alvarez and Cotto at 154 are at least on par with Lara. And surely Pacquaio, Mosley and Marquez are at least on par with Garcia, Thurman and Khan.

Ultimately he did fight all the biggest box office boxers. He didn't jump on high risk none PPV boxers

Also Mayweather was nowhere near as fast post-2007 as he was beforehand. He was past prime himself against Mosley, Marquez, Pacquaio, Alvarez, Cotto etc.

 

1-sure they were on par with lara in terms of overall boxing ability and especially resume. The difference was mayweather was very careful in his opp9nent selection. Cotto and younger canelo were come forward aggressive boxer puncher types. DLH was past his prime and tended to fight on tbe front foot as well.

Lara would have been interesting since he was a more defensive stick and move type and a southpaw. When was the last time Mayweather fought a fast cagey type of boxer?

2-of course pacquiao and Mosley were comparable wins to Thurman, Garcia etc. The elephant in room is that pacquiao and Mosley had tons of miles on the clock and in their late 30's while Thurman and Garcia were hungry and in their 20's. It stands out when you notice the pattern that with the exception of canelo, most of mayweathers biggest names were in their 30's and had been in wars.

3-that's exactly my point. I am not criticizing him for picking big ppv names since the whole point is to make money. However there is plenty of room to criticize if he's claiming to be the best ever and that he is so skilled but he tends to only face a certain type of boxer (sluggers and slow footed boxer punchers) and most of them were past their prime. This would be like a UFC fighter claiming to be the most skilled of all time yet he only fights short aggressive wrestlers.

Yes mayweather was aging but so were several of those guys you mentioned.

 

No he did not have a wide open defense. You are cherry picking Frazier fighting literally the fastest hw of all time in a brutal 15 round fight. Ali had a very hard time landing on him despite his speed once he started smoking and getting his rhythm. Frazier even mocked his hands down style taunting him. If he knew he could take a punch he'd do it if it meant being able to get past the jab and forcing his way inside. You can say the same thing about other great pressure fighters such as Chavez, Armstrong, etc. Comes with the territory. Name a single pressure fighter at heavyweight who was more skilled than Frazier, I'll wait.

 

Ummm, was Ali expected to lose a limb and fight at light heavy, or two limbs and fight at middle, etc? There was no creation of super heavy or super duper heavy.

He fought Norton 10 years past his best. Mayweather lost clearly to Castillo when he was supposed to be in his prime, and Oscar and Maidana deserved draws.

Mayweather also criticises Ali for not throwing body shots or uppercuts. How about this - if Mayweather went through his whole career without throwing body punches or an uppercut, he'd lose most of his fights, if not all of his fights. His main outside punch was the jab to stomach and only inside shot was the swivel right uppercut from the side stance.

This proves Ali's judgment of timing and distance and defensive footwork was actually far superior to Mayweather's, to only throw jabs, crosses and arm left hooks and succeed like he did in one of the original eight weight divisions when there was still only one champion per weight...

 

Tyson, Holyfield, Chavez, Napoles and Duran were all much more skilled than Frazier.

 

I said name a PRESSURE FIGHTER at HEAVYWEIGHT. Only 2 of those boxers were heavyweights and neither of them were pure swarmer pressure types. Tyson actually sucked at swarming and was easy to tie up.

 

1. It'd be an interesting fight but not really a PPV fight. Who was the last stick and move southpaw? Judah, Mitchell and Corley. He wanted Spinks in 2004

2. Pacquaio and Cotto were younger than Mayweather though. Corrales and Castilo were prime. Mayweather was calling out Mosley/Delahoya years before he fought them.

3. He's not avoiding a certain style, he's taking all comers but the only big threats he's taking are PPV stars. I don't think that's unreasonable.