All opinions welcome - Rating Floyd Mayweather as a skilled ATG

The reason I dont like Mayweather is because of the fights he is NOT giving the fans, Im more than with you there..... but he has beat some very good fighters & showed unbelievable skills & a very sharp boxing brain while doing it.

Would I place him alongside Ali or Robinson ?... No... but it sure as hell aint because of his lack of talent, its because of his lack of ambition.

:thumbsup

 

Mayweather is much more skilled than Frazier. I'm not saying Frazier never had any skill at all, that would be stupid, as he was great for a pressure fighter. He's handicapped right away as he primarily worked with his left hand. And while Frazier did use his jab, it was again worked to get him close to his opponent. Mayweather's jab wasn't among the elite, but it was used more freely and he could sit on the outside with it to control the pace of a fight. Frazier was simply limited in terms of what he could do in the ring. His style was far more direct and workman like than Mayweather's. IMO Mayweather was a far more well rounded fighter in terms of gelling these attributes together - lateral movement, feinting, attacking, varied defensive moves, and varied combinations.

 

Floyd is **** compared to Duran and Pep. He's immensely overrated in every aspect imaginable.

 

I think across the board Mayweather was more skilled. Yes, Frazier was superb in the areas you said, but he simply isn't as well rounded as Mayweather in terms of balancing out offensive and defensive abilities. Mayweather wasn't just pure flashy. He was flashy for a reason, because he was skilled. He wasn't partly showmanship within the ropes like Hamed. Infact, he was pretty much the opposite. You're saying Frazier had "faster pressure" which is correct. But now we are comparing things that are cloudy. Mainly because they were totally different styles. Frazier was certainly better in some areas than Mayweather. His left hook was better, and he was better offensively inside. Mayweather's accuracy to the body and head was sublime.

Feed Frazier a Corrales equivalent at heavyweight and he'd knock him out inside two rounds. Even if Frazier had less power, lets say "pound for pound" the same as Mayweather at the lower weights, he'd still KO the opponent, although it would take longer. Frazier's style was all about coming forward, being relentless, and cutting down his opponent, steadily. As you know well McGrain, Frazier wasn't wild and erratic. I happen to think Mayeather's style is more well rounded and he's a better skilled fighter with two hands, more varied in terms of offense and defense, and a better boxer inside and outside - combing both. Mayweather could sit on the outside, be the matador or the bull, and had a better arsenal of punches. In general terms, Mayweather was a more skilled fighter across the board.

 

I've always said this, and it doesn't need paragraphs upon paragraphs. Take away a fighter's power, almost entirely, and see what he has in reserve. Those are the fighters that impress me the most. Ones that don't don't have styles that are based on getting their power into the mix to win fights or take at least rely on power taking a grip of fights. Usually you see a fighter's skills shine across the board when they don't have power. It must be said that power being successful also has a hell of a lot of skill behind it as well, of course.

 

The first 6 are the toughest, I think FMJ has a 25%-50% chance in those match ups but after that I see FMJ beating them all. Mayweather's beat allot of these style types: Zivic is basically Ricky Hatton, Trinidad is Corrales, ODLH already been figured out and loses to every prime slick boxer he faced...

Ross and Armstrong are both lightweights, and avoided the best WWs of the period imo, Mayweather is bigger and stronger than both. To go with that he has speed, athleticism, height, reach, stamina and skill advantages over both

And just a thought for you some people find the thought of FMJ beating Leonard at WW propostarous but against FMS Leonard had many problems and FMJ is a better version. I still pick Leonard all the same

 

Your right.. I suppose it is an assumption when placing FMJ with the A+ elite like Pep, Ali & Whitaker... those guys did prove more in their careers, they did more with their talent thats why I wouldnt rank him on the same level as them.... but as far as judging FMJ from the opponents he `has faced,` I do rank him extremely high & I think he is the fighter of `our generation` (15 or so yrs) that will go down, talent wise, as the best.

:thumbsup

 

His skills are helped with his speed and athleticism. But you can't have one without the other when we talk about fighters like Ali and Mayweather, etc. They do things that would be more difficult to do than if they were slow and lacked the athletic tools. Thats obvious. You can't say well they were only as skilled as they were because they had speed and were elasticated. When comes to those type of fighters, you simply can't have one without the other. It's packaged.

 

Rewatch the fight, slow it down, DLH barely lands anything, Mayweather backs up when DLH jabs but those jabs just don't land, barely anything landed the whole fight, watch it in slowmo

Your certainly showing a bias against FMJ claiming DLH was in way in control of that fight, he simply couldn't land punches, it wasn't close, watch the whole fight and find a flush punch for DLH you'll probably find about 3

DLH got stunned at 1 point and if he kept throwing punches and didn't go into his shell he may well have been ko'd