It's possible. There were lots of very popular fighters he could have fought. JJC, prince naseem, de la Hoya. I suppose it depends on how he did, he seemed to need that undefeated aura more than most fighters
um, mayweather debuted in the mid 90s ... anyone who wasnt a casual was well aware of and he was already having great fights by the late 90s, like his blowout of highly touted Angel Manfredy for example. Mayweather continued to grow in popularity and really exploded about 10 years into his career when he broke from Arum and started promoting himself. I think he would have been just as popular had he come out 10 years sooner
One thing is I think Mayweather is known pretty well outside of boxing. He's familiar to most US sports fans and people who follow celebrities generally. He definitely benefitted from US apathy to the Klitschkos, like Leonard and Duran did from the quieter HW scene of the 80s. He also benefitted from hip hop becoming part of mainstream culture. It gave his Money persona a mass market legibility it wouldn't have had 10 years earlier.
I remember when Joshua had home coming and fans were taking pictures and Floyd was there aswell and nobody cared about him and wanted picture with him. That would never happen to Tyson if he was in Floyds place.
people know who mayweather is over here in australia too. ironically, the mcgregor fight did a lot for floyd's profile. a lot of non-boxing fans were talking about it over here and watched the fight.
Of course people know who he is. You don't sell that many ppv's if you not a cross over star. No he isn't on Tyson levels but nobody is. That's not a stick to beat him with.
Remember when Floyd had to have his goons torch his own mini bus to get noticed in the UK? This content is protected
Trickier question than you'd think cause boxing was way more popular back then, even more so going back another decade, so perhaps he could've become popular much sooner riding the waves of much larger general viewership. Floyd really only broke thru by beating the big PPV star in DLH, no real masses ever knew who he was when he utterly destroyed Corrales, I'd imagine most Pactars and Floyd haters never watched professional boxing those days. It's kinda incredible he put those a**es in seats when boxing was really losing steam later, and had he came up with Duran, Hagler, Hearns, Benitez and Leonard, no doubt he would've become huge much sooner, with that early Floyd style, good trash talk, huge competition and HUGELY more general viewership.