Mayweather claims he is greater than Ali: "With all due respect, that's how it is"

Reflex fighters are invariably going to have short shelf lifes and Uncle Sam robbed Muhammad Ali of a significant part of his shelf life. I remember reading an interview with the legendary trainer Gil Clancy. He was in Ali's corner with Angelo Dundee for the Banks fight where Sonny dropped him. Clancy said he had to revive Angie. He was asked about Roy Jones Jr. He said Roy was Ali without the chin. Ray Leonard was a more complete fighter than Ali but like him he was a quintessential reflex fighter. Their career arcs are very similar. The futher south of 30 Ray got the less Ray was Ray.

 

A non boxer having his debut bout who wasnt even that great at MMA??

The coping and justifying is strong in this one.

 

And much better defense

 

Ali fought all over the world being a world champion. First it was out of necessity then he was getting offers from Manila, Africa, Canada, England among other countries.

Mayweather had the potential to be one of the greatest ever. He never wanted to test himself. He chose to be a Las Vegas lounge act. Fighting in your hometown is cool once in awhile.

 

Thr coping is strong with you. Rocky fought a bunch of guys who had fewer than ten wins and/or losing records.

 

Mayweather isn't from Vegas and the premise of the argument is bizarre.

 

If your interlocutor has a sense of humor even, he would have to admit that's pretty funny.

 

I'll throw more chum in the water. They have a series in Ring Magazine* called "The Best I Faced". Why do boxers like Chuck Wepner, Alfredo Evangelista, Joe Bugner, and Ken Norton say Muhammad Ali was the "best they ever faced" in virtually every category but hard punches? Are they all delusional? Are they all biased? Does Evangelista have to say Ali is great to curry favor with the people in, um, Uruguay?



*I believe it's Ring Magazine, but I'm not certain.

 

You prove yourself the best in a division by beating the best which Floyd did. I don't see any argument that he wasn't the best at 130, 135, and 147. He beat the best opponents available in every weight class

 

He beat Cotto and Canelo at 154. He was the best/lineal there.

 

130- Acelino Freitas, Joel Casamayor
135- Paul Spadafora, Stevie Johnston. Shane Mosley, Artur Grigorian
140- Kostya Tszyu,
147-Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams, Cory Spinks, Amir Khan, etc

All these guys were available during FMJ’s time and he managed to not fight any of them (excepting Mosley who he met a solid decade after the fight actually made sense).

Thats without bringing Pacquiao into it, who was at his peak and most definitely available to meet in 2008-10 but Floyd decided to retire and be a part time boxer instead of meeting Manny in his pomp.

Plenty of smoke and mirrors and excuses for why fights didn’t happen during Mayweather’s career.

 

At 130 Corrales was better than any of them
At 135 Castillo was again better than anyone mentioned aside from Mosley who left the division before Floyd arrived
At 147 Pacquiao was better than anyone mentioned

Why should he have wasted time on guys like Freitas, Cory Spinks or Khan? None of those guys are good enough to have been a priority.

He had like two fights at 140 so why bring up Tszyu?

 

Pacquiao was better at 147 in 2009 not in 2015 when the fight actually happened. He also wasn’t 6’2 with a 78” reach and like Paul Williams was. In fact Floyd never fought anyone with a reach advantage over him from memory.

Spinks, Freitas and Khan were all belt holders at or around the same time Floyd was in their divisions. You know a unification fight may have been nice for boxing around then so they were definitely worthy fights.

Floyd himself called out Tszyu but then didn’t fight him when there was no real reason not to (aside from the risk it entailed). His foray at 140 was all soft touches.

 

Lemme ask you guys this: If you sized up Pac to Foreman size, would he beat Foreman? Of course. P4P, this ain't even close.

 

Take Mayweather out of it. If Steph Curry is seven feet tall he's not Steph Curry. If Shaquille O'Neal is six feet tall he's not Shaquille O'Neal. The rationale of pound for pound is success at a particular weight class or classes. It's not how successful a boxer would be if he was bigger or smaller.