theres no way you can take all that time off without having fought even half the other best welters and claim to be the greatest,,and dont forget this whole topic may be rendered totally void after he gets beat in the future,,,not even close,,I mean Mayweather retires for no decent reason leaving questions unanswered,,Ali stands up to the US government and vietnam and in doing so is forced out - Go figure (and trust me Im no Ali nuthugger)
Sorry, is this even a valid question. Of course Mayweather is the greatest. Mayweather would beat Hearns, Leonard and Duran at the same time. Think logically for a moment. Hearns comes at Mayweather, Mayweather dodges the first 2 shots, dips away, then Duran tries to hit him with a body shot from behind, floyd side steps out the way, Leonard then comes with a 10 punch combination, but Floyds defense is too solid, Hearns tries to come in to finish Floyd off, but CHECK HOOK down goes Hearns. Now its just Duran and Leonard. Duran throws the uppercut, Floyd leans out of the way BOOM straight right hand, Durans head pops off. Now all is left his Leonard. He's in the corner cowering like a baby. Floyd walks up, a devilish grin on his face. Leonard starts to beg for mercy "No please Floyd you were right, I do punch flat footed and I was beaten by a light.... BAM. Leonard is down in a bloody heep. Floyd begins to celebrate his victory, until...Oh no Hagler jumps into the ring and surprises Floyd, he's throwing hard left, right, left, right, Floyd looks in trouble, but wait, in comes Roger Mayweather with the chair and smashes Hagler over the head, with Hagler stunned, Mayweather blasts a god like 20 punch combinations, and knocks Hagler out of the ring. Seriously, thats how good Mayweather is. :good
As posted before, he needs to demolish marquez (which I dont see happening), then beat the winner of Cotto/Clottey (Cotto), and then maybe shane if shane is in good fighting form. If he does this, i rank him up there but still below SRL. Maybe around 15 or so on my list. The lack of realy tough fights requiring him to dig down to the deepest recesses of his beeing, and adversity in his carreer to date means that I could never rate him up there with Louis, SRR, Ali, Pep and Armstrong.
No he's not. He's close to being greatest of this era, Pacquiao is leading now with him close behind.
It's all a part of getting attention and pissing people off. The easiest way to attract people is being negative and talking smack, that always brings attention and he seems to do it well. I remember Muhammad Ali was literally SPIT on whenever he called his self the greatest back in the day.