Raymond Charles Leonard vs. Floyd Joy Sinclair Mayweather

Ain't no ****ing way in hell Mayweathers shoulder roll is going to work against a lightning fast, highly skilled fighter with a 74 inch reach. He gets hurt.

High guard or no guard at all. Lol, imagine a prime Leonard defused by a shoulder roll. On what Earth?

 

To be fair, Leonard has beaten multiple guys who thump ANY version of Mayweather and, well, Floyd hasnt beaten anybody half as good as Leonard.

Consider that, Leonard beat a prime Benitez and that is a footnote on his CV. That same Benitez would be Floyds best win. Like no hate, but Floyd may not even beat Benitez. A guy Leonard was out boxing with ease. Until eventually he decided to go whoop on his ass for real.

 

I wouldn’t completely count out Floyd. Duran said he beat Leonard because he was doing so much telegraphing and he already knew everything he was gonna throw. Floyd can easily take advantage of such a big mistake and make it competitive

 

This is an excellent point, I was unaware that he said that. I’d still favour SRL on the balance of probabilities at 147 and I think it gets easier for him as they go up through the divisions but definitely something to think about.

 

That’s not Mayweather’s only defensive tool, you’re doing him a grave disservice. He can read an offense as well as anybody, roll and counter on the ropes if he has to and sometimes just straight up make a fighter miss with his reflexes in the pocket. SRL may take it at 147 but it wouldn’t be easy work and there’s a chance he drops a decision through ineffective aggression.

 

That was only for the 1st fight when Leonard was off his game plan because of Duran's mind games & trash talk. Leonard fought foolishly because he allowed Duran into his head. Mayweather wouldn't be able to do the same & even if he did - he wouldn't be doing himself any favours fighting an aggressive Leonard.

Duran knew Leonards usual style was problematic for him, so he needed him to fight aggressively on the inside where Duran excels. Mayweather hasn't got the inside skills or the physical strength of Duran - so he wouldn't be able to keep an aggressive Leonard off him.

 

Great post. I don’t think that Mayweather is slightly less of an ATG PFP than Leonard but it’s marginal either way. I’m thinking Mayweather’s exploits and dominance at 130 and 135 even that out, but the size disparity plays into SRL’s hands head to head. Mayweather - Duran at 135 or 140 (which Mayweather basically skipped over due to a lack of comp there) fascinates me more as a head to head.

 

Floyd usually enjoys a significant reach advantage against his opponents. SRL is bigger than him, just as long as him, and a much bigger puncher. He's not pull countering SRL nor would he try.

Old, small, injured, and semi-shot T-Rex Pac managed to stun Floyd twice and was countering him well. To such an effective degree that Floyd clinched at every opportunity and at one point diving at Pac's waist just because Pac was close. That's why Floyd landed his lowest connect percentage on Pac and fought the most cautious fight of his life. Pac is physically very weak (easy to muscle him around) whereas SRL is big and strong.

And remember, he stood in the pocket and even walked Clenelo's ass down at points in the fight.

I don't see Floyd surviving SRL.

 

Why are you bring Pacquiao into this? Anyway, just for the hell of it...

Mayweather wouldn't 'try' to counter SRL at welterweight? Of course he would. Nothing in his career suggests that he'd lay down and accept a pasting, he gets his shots in. He doesn't try to survive. In a mythical Mayweather - Hagler matchup, yeah, fair enough, that's clearly a bridge too far for an undersized welterweight. You're fond of referencing Mosley nearly 'taking Mayweather's head off', but you neglect to say that after that point he was clowned and beaten up, that's the kind of character he had in the ring. He also gave IMMEDIATE rematches to the two guys who ran him closest in Castillo and Marquez - what's not to like about that?

'Old, small, injured and semi-shot T rex Pac'. Ok, first thing's first. Reach is generally considered advantageous for outside fighting and for defense - for inside fighting 'T-Rex' arms will do very nicely, thank you. Less room required for your offense. Ask Iron Mike. Or, you know, Pac himself. Pac was supposed to be this tornado of irresistible offense - so what happened? Pac needed to take the fight to Mayweather and he just simply didn't do enough, he didn't create many clear openings and he couldn't capitalise once he did.

Secondly, small? Yeah, because Mayweather was a giant welterweight... or a giant at any other weight for that matter. Mayweather was routinely outweighed by his opponents. If you give credit to Pac for being undersized at 140+, you have to give it elsewhere where it's due.

Old and semi-shot? Mayweather was older, and his defense relied as much on quick reflexes, positioning and footwork as it did on defensive IQ. 2015 Mayweather was not vintage. Still a great fighter, but you could say the same for Pac. Marquez and Pac went life and death BEFORE Marquez cleaned him out with that shot, and to be fair to Pac he was in the ascendency and trying to stop Marquez. Let's go easy with the old and semi shot. The fight happened post-prime and it's a shame that it did but the reasons have been done to death and let's forego the 'testing', 'my health' etc. on both sides.

Injured? No way. Pac was throwing leather just fine until Mayweather caught him with some big right hands and stopped him being so reckless coming in. Did the memories of the Marquez KO fight cause some 'flight' instinct to kick in at this point? Getting violently KOd while on the offensive will do that to an elite boxer (I imagine... none of us are elite boxers). Nobody with an ounce of knowledge was surprised by this result. At the fight party I went to (I'm saying fight party for the benefit of Americans, we're more inclined to call it a **** up), pre-fight predictions were about 8-2 in favour of Mayweather and one of those in favour of Pac was the householder's teenage son so... It wasn't close, the scores were fair and you're imagining things if you think that Pacquiao was generally doing good work, he wasn't.

Mayweather needed to win that fight AT ALL COSTS. No room for error whatsoever, this was a legacy fight and he fought accordingly. He wanted a relatively comfortable points decision and that's what he achieved. Of course he didn't go in there guns blazing risking a knockout defeat when the stakes were so high. You may have noticed that Pac was unusually cautious as well. He was getting tagged frequently in the first few rounds and it threw him off to the point where his aggression was ineffective and, at times, desperate.

So yeah... quite what all this has to do with a mythical matchup between Mayweather and SRL I don't know. Next time, let's try to stay on topic yeah?

 

He would never have pot shotted Ray.

 

The fight with Manny played out how most people predicted. But yes, Manny was injured.

He was denied an injection before the fight.

He didn’t capitalise on things in the fight.

He had shoulder surgery the following week.

 

Leonard is a large favourite. Bigger, quicker, better. Mayweather was phenomenal, but Leonard takes this and he takes it clearly.

 

Yeah because SRL was impossible to tag and Mayweather didn’t land on anybody in his biggest fights...

Why can’t an elite fighter like Mayweather read SRL and catch him coming in with single shots or create angles with his footwork and catch him off balance? I’ll accept that SRL holds physical advantages but skill wise, you think it’s impossible for Mayweather to score single shots or occasionally a couple against SRL at welter?

 

At 147 I think it’s narrower but at anything above that then yeah, clear favourite. I don’t think that he’s necessarily better PFP but H2H he’s better. Mayweather - Duran interests me most out of the Mayweather v the fab 4, would have been an interesting fight.

It looked fine during the fight. I question the severity of the injury. That’s just me though, I’m just some random on a boxing forum.