FANTASY FIGHT: Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Pernell Whitaker (15 Rounds/Poll)

If it was a welterweight fight, I’d pick Mayweather but at Whitaker’s best weight which was 5 pounds north of Mayweather’s best weight I have to go with Sweet Pea.

 

Genuine pick em for me.

 

@135 Whitaker. I cant think of one thing Mayweather does better. PW by UD

 

Me too. Would certainly go the difference with neither sustaining much damage in a likely close, possibly debatble, decision fight.

 

I'll go with Mayweather. I think he was better offensively and perhaps a shade quicker. His straight right hand beats Whitaker's left hand.

 

Agree with most of the comments saying there is very little between them but i hate sitting on the fence,so with no confidence whatsoever Floyd by razor thin decision

 

Pernell routinely threw more than TWICE as many punches per round as Floyd. Sometimes more. It is Floyd's sparse offense that makes me lean towards Pernell. Both have excellent defense.

 

I think Whitaker wins a competitive and pretty close decision. In a 15 rounder, the most popular scorecard being 9-6.

I think the jab would be key, as well as Whitaker’s workrate. He had a nice workrate, and used those angles so well.


From about 89 to about 95, I thought Pea was a little better than Floyd at his prime years. Whitaker declined quite a lot after 95, while Floyd declined less so in his latter years. He had great longevity and consistency.

 

Up to the time that he finished his run at 135, I don't believe that Floyd had ever fought a southpaw. If he did, it was well removed from the championship level. That's just off the top of my head, going by memory.
On the other hand, he would have his uncle in his corner and Roger dropped, and seriously hurt, Whitaker so he might receive some guidance on how to land his own right hand on Pernell.
I don't think that Floyd much liked fighting southpaws- I don't think he looked too good against Judah years later but I haven't seen that fight in a long time. In a fight with Whitaker I expect that Pernell would be a little more comfortable taking the fight to Floyd than Floyd would be taking it to Whitaker. Though I'm sure Floyd would do that if he felt he needed to in order to win the fight.
It would be interesting to see how Floyd dealt with a guy set on determining the terms of engagement- the positioning, the distance- because that was Whitaker's strength and he would certainly come out and try to do that against Floyd.
One last thing...I trained a guy that sparred a lot of rounds with Floyd, and he sparred with Emmanuel Augustus prior to that. Augustus showed him, and he showed me, things that he did to disrupt Floyd's rhythm and give him problems. If Pernell was able to do the same thing to Mayweather, he would win the fight.
I think this fight could end up being to guys feinting at one another, maneuvering for position, punctuated by some sharp exchanges, but, overall, fought mentally at least as much as physically.

 

Can we all just finally admit that these guys are both just lacking in technical skill and relied too much on their power?

 

It’s really up in the air for me but honestly I can’t imagine a more tedious fight. Two defensive minded boxers with little power trying to out think each other for an entire evening. It would probably be hard as hell to judge too.