How will boxing history remember Floyd Mayweather?

Isn't he considering fighting in South Africa in honour of Mandela's birthday, or has that fallen through now?

 

I'll sit back and wait for Flea to give his two cents.

 

History will remember him as one of the best of his generation but will always compare him unfavourably to ATGs.

 

Skill wise he ranks very high amongst the greats of all time imo, in terms of his resume not so much.

 

My personal opinion is that his career is mainly smoke and mirrors and his greatness is often based on the misconception that he's 'unbeatable'.

No doubt he is a fantastic boxer and has superb skills, but the frustration of being so inactive and not taking on some of the best opponents out there leaves a massive hole in his legacy in my view.

 

as the man who didnt fight Manny Pacquiao...

Which is a shame because he was/is brilliant

 

Fantastic boxer in the ring, complete dickhead outside it. Considers himself bigger than the sport, and exempt (at WW) from having to fight the best. I also have suspicions of him having a shaky chin. But I guess we'll never find out for sure, because the ****er is that good in the ring, but still won't look towards dangerous opponents.

 

he's in the game to win.and he has so far always worked out how to win.he is not interested in entertainment and machoism,he just takes the sport literally in its purest form.great at what he does yes! but not great.....

 

Resume is decent rather than spectacular. Skillset looks flawless but might not do had he fought all the best challenges when presented with them.

He's done nothing wrong but there are countless more fighters that have done more amazing things, and his skillset isn't so unbelievable that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (Sumbu Kalambay did everything he did and against better opposition) so, in short, a hard fighter to gauge.

Has risen through the weights and has been consistent, but his resume just isn't up to scratch with many other great fighters.

People will no doubt claim I'm a 'hater' or 'underrating him; quite to the contrary, I am just giving great fighters the props they deserve. Floyd doesn't deserve to be placed amongst the fifty greatest fighters that has ever lived IMO, simply because for all talk of 'he could do this' or 'although he didn't fight that guy he would've beaten him', he hasn't. He just isn't up to par.

For this era, he is firmly behind Manny. B-Hop also.

All this talk of 'unbelievable skillset' doesn't wash with me either; you really see how brilliant someone is when they have that one opponent, which hopefully weren't Castillo (brilliant but not an ATG) and De La Hoya (brilliant but not a true ATG and not at his best when Floyd faced him) both of who pushed him as far as he could go. Mosley win was quality but makes you think; if a past-it Mosley could force Floyd to make some real adjustments, how would he look against truly formidable opponents?

In short, many will remember him as a brilliant master of the sweet science. I would personally say they're wrong; he's a waste of talent. Or rather, a very intelligent charade, made to look flawless through very intelligent cherry picking.

Is he an Elite fighter? Of course, the man is no joke. But he doesn't deserve to be placed into that sorta' class :good

 

This sums it up for me.

How can someones skillset be validated when it hasn't been tested? He has not faced complete jokers, in fact he has faced a lot of solid Elite/top fighters, no doubt.

But he has never had that boogeyman to overcome. Well, he has but seems disinterested in facing him. That's fair enough, but he doesn't deserve a free pass from many who would say 'well he'd clearly beat him'.

 

well put it this way, he won't be remembered to be better than Ray Robinson regardless how many times he tells us.

 

I'll remember him the way I'll remember Pacquiao and Calzaghe, potentially ATG's but missed era defining fights to prove they are undoubtedly the best.

 

Good question. Simple answer.

He'll always be regarded as the 2nd best fighter of his era.

Unless he beats Manny, Floyd will forever been in his shadow.