he's proven to be superior to all fighters of the current era, but how well would he do if he had to fight against guys like donald curry, terry norris, simon brown, lloyd honeygrams, marlon starling, roberto duran, pipino cueves, ray leonard, wilfred benitez, HITMAN, mike mccallum etc. floyd is a good fighter but in all honesty, the modern era of boxing is way too watered down for me to consider him a great. paulie malignaggi was a world champion.
He would have been competitive in any era. But, unlikely to be a champion in the 80s. He could maybe outbox Cuevas for a brief championship run, but he would fall short to the cream of the crop in that era. Fighters like Hearns, McCallum, and Leonard would destroy him.
Look at how much ducking he did in this era. Now multiply it by x1000 and you're not even close! Don't wanna fight Hearns and Ray @ WW? Go south and face Pryor. Don't wanna face those guys but you wanna go up? Face Hagler and McCallum. He'd have NOWHERE to run. He'd be out of options so quickly.
I don't think he'd do well at welter or higher, (might be able to beat Cuevas) but I'd pick Montreal Duran, any version of SRL, Hearns and McCallum, to beat him, and he and Benitez would be a pick 'em fight for me. But a jr welter and lower he'd do pretty good. Again I think Duran would beat him at 135, JCC would be interesting as would Pryor and Arguello. I think he'd likely win one or two of these fights and lose one or two of them.
He'd still be a great fighter, but not as many divisional titles, and wouldn't be undefeated for so long unless he was even more careful with his opponents. I have Floyd extremely high H2H from 130-140. Unlike most fighters nowadays, I am not thinking much about how he'd be in a different division under old weigh-in rules because he's been known to really cut weight. At 147, the list of guys who I'd pick over Floyd increases a whole lot.
Norris beats him unless he self-destructs and gets himself DQ'd. Norris is a very bad style matchup for the smaller Mayweather. His biggest weakness does not play into Floyd's hands as Floyd is a modest puncher.
Depends on what part of the decade you drop him off in, who the champions are and what stage in their careers they are in, which divisions he tries to conquer, etc, etc... My guess is that he doesn't get away with as much division hopping as he did in his own era and picking up a loss or two is a lot more plausible. But either way he still establishes a very relevant presence and partakes in some very good fights.
I don't think he would be as dominant. He probably wouldn' t be undefeated. And he wouldn't be allowed to cherry pick as much. If he wanted big money, he would have to fight other top guys on Close Circuit, and later in the decade, PPV. Leonard, Benitez, Curry, Duran, Hearns, Whitaker, Chavez all have a good shot at beating him. Guys like Rosario, Camacho, Arguello, Sanchez (if he moved up to 130) would be formidable opposition.
I think that he would have dominated 130/135/140 in the 80s with Pryor, JCC, and maybe Rosario presenting dangerous but beatable challenges. He wouldn't have been in nearly as much of a rush to move up to welterweight or junior middle. I think that he could have beat some good welterweights/jr middles though, including Duran, Cuevas, and Benitez.
Decent at best. Leonard and Hearns would have handed him his ass. And Curry, McCrory, and Starling would've beaten him also, as would Camacho, Davis Jr, and Taylor.And Pernell would humiliate him.
Floyd is a complete fighter with defensive skills better than most other complete fighters. He would have been competitive and champion in any era in boxing, just not as dominant.
Of course he's be successful. He would have to time it well of course just as he did in real life. SFW was littered with top men who were faded, he'd probably have a field day there. After Duran leaves LW he only really has Chavez to fear, I get the sense he'd have took that fight though so that would cost his uneaten record. LW he could do exactly what he did and pick up a title but avoid the top dog who wasn't long off retirement. By this point were talking like 1985. I think he'd have caught Honeyghan just after upsetting Curry. At this point he can face faded versions of Duran, Cervantes, Cuevas, Palomino, Benitez and he should beat them all. At this stage of his career he can't really move up to LMW. Just as when Winky was in the way, here we have Norris. Norris is a nightmare for Floyd for obvious reasons. If he's around in 97 he maybe picks up a couple of belts at LMW, probably unifies against Vargas for his lineal belt. My conclusion, he has an equally successful career. The biggest threat to his success is Chavez who would be mirroring his progress during this exact time frame, if he stays one step ahead he can probably beat Chavez at the end of his career. A man like Floyd who fought from 130-154 and could spend the last decade of his career from 140-153, he will succeed in any era.