Floyd Mayweather and the round that changed everything

Floyd is a smart guy, very, very smart. All the trash talk and wild behaviour is a media persona he built up to market himself, but in reality, he's very intelligent and calculated person (which hurts his career). And his smartest quality might be to stay healthy in life! No drinking, smoking or drugs, proper food and huge attention both in the ring and by opponent selection to get through his career with minimal or no damages. Floyd is actually super-sensitive to his health, his gym looks clean like a lab, and if you havent heard camp rumors of Floyd's team jumping on anyone going dirty in sparring, you could see how they reacted like madmen when Zab low-blowed him a few years back (plus the panic on Ellerbe's face in May). In fact, Floyd expressed numerous times he doesn't wanna end up punch-drunk and ever since he's on his own, he's playing his cards well and takes on the biggest selling fights at the right time, looking for minimal damange.

It was only logical to "retire" after Oscar and Hatton with no megafight on the horizon, especially that he did get hit more that year (DLH's jab, few Hatton bombs early), so he stayed away and let the guys around him decide the fate of 140&147, hoping for either the unbeaten Cotto, or the even more popular Filipino sensation to come out on top and have a super-megafight. And as Pac became the mega-guy, It was no surprise that he took on JMM on his comeback, Marquez is the fighter generally known for having Pac's number and to shut him out was a (rather false) message to the average fans: he's the dude in boxing!

For me, it was also no surprise either that the Pac fight fell off for March, it was an unlogical date for a PPV as Manny couldn't do May, so with the September-November date in sight and after the purposefully blown-out-of-proportion drug testing issue (very good free promotion), he took the interim fight with Mosley. By June, Floyd got the win, the World Welterweight Championship in the bag plus a truckload of cash. But where's the fight? In May, he dominated Mosley in all but one round, everything went as planned in all but 3 minutes, but despite the wide nature of the win, Floyd probably considers the fight a loss. That is because he was badly hurt in that 2nd round, maybe more hurt than ever before, and he most likely felt the effects of Mosley's bombs weeks later realizing his goal to get out not only with and 0, many $s and historical Ws (incl. Pacquiao) but undamaged was getting out of reach.

Look at what happened to a fight that was sure to happen and was all but a done deal at the start of the year. Fighting the energetic and powerful PacMan didn't seem such a good idea after that 2nd round vs. the 38 year-old Mosley, and the Summer negotiations took a bizarre turn with Floyd getting out and taking the year off or even retire. It's not that Floyd afraids of getting hit, he can take a good one and give a great back. It's not that he afraids of Pacquiao, he strongly believes he can desisively beat him. But can he do it without risking some damage he so eagarly wants to avoid? This more flat-footed and more physical Floyd is not likely to pull a prime Pernell Whitaker on Pacquiao, and those flush shots that certain to take might not worth the millions, at least so close after May. Maybe Mosley's sole round already did the damage, if not physical, mental: Floyd's recent racist and homophobic rant clearly looked to be desperate and of out line even for Floyd, once he got out of the fight in a pretty bad looking way, he needed to communicate it somehow, but with off the script, it went very wrong.

The fight might still happen next year after suitable rest, or maybe he'll look for a more calculated risk, but one thing is certain: that 2nd round completely changed Floyd's script and perspective for this year.