Again, I MUST STRESS, I am not downgrading Floyd or downplaying his achievements, it's more that putting him in the 'top 20' is dismissing those that have done more, beaten better fighters, and have worked harder to achieve the tag of 'greatness' (i.e fighting more than once a year) It's not 'Floyd isn't good' it's 'Floyd isn't as good as these'. All my opinion of course, but I have a lot more to back up my argument that Floyd has plus points to his ring record.
Floyd has found himself in a situation where he has a platform to tell millions of people who don't follow boxing that he is great. Whereas past fighters had to fight the very best to prove themselves, Floyd basically has his own tv show and millions of dollars of marketing money to turn his ordinary opponents into great fighters, beat them, and then reinforce his claims in the minds of those who bought into the marketing.
However his career ends, he is the best fighter of his generation by a country mile. There is nobody even close to him in terms of talent.
Why? Martinez isn't massively bigger than him. Ray Leonard managed it when he was a light-middle at biggest. Ray Robinson managed it when he'd spent all of his prime at 147, and was past-prime for much of his 160 tenure. Floyd always has an alibi for avoiding a challenge. Except for punching his baby mother in the mouth.
I swear, the significance of weight is completely blown out of proportion due to the ridiculous emphasis that is now placed on receiving a loss on your record. It's used as an excuse so much ('i just didn't feel strong enough carrying this extra 7lbs . . . [despite weighing the same in the ring as I do every fight and not having to dehydrate so much]) that the idea of a fighter moving from 147 to 160 makes a fans head explode. All this does is justify a fighter staying in is weight class and not taking the same challenges that would have been expected of them 25 years ago.