Mayweather's Legacy

Smart investments and a helluva fighter

 

Your entire post is wrong. Literally the whole thing

 

He isnt TBE

 

Cool story bro

 

Terrific fighter, but God I hated him! A lot of his fights were SO dull. I could never for the life of me figure out how he was such a draw. Genuinely. And he became very risk averse unless the weight of the risk was stacked in his favour.
Brilliant fighter? Yes. ATG? Absolutely. TBE? Never.

 

A good point made in this thread that great fighters have great fights, what were Floyd’s greatest fights? Ive forgotten his biggest fights already.

 

I still think we were robbed of a really good fight in the Hatton fight.
I still think Mayweather would have won, but it would have been most likely an entertainment UD for Mayweather.
He only got the KO because Hatton got frustrated with the refeering which was a joke. Yes Floyd was marking up Hatton already in the first few rounds but he didn’t have the power to KO him stone cold like Pac did. Hatton almost knocked him down with a jab as well. Hatton still had himself belief at that time too. Probably a losing effort but ironically for Floyd that fight is forgotten now when it could have been a really good fight if he didn’t have Las Vegas in his pocket.
That’s the story with Floyd though, he pretty much robbed himself of any worthwhile legacy.

 

Great fighter often have great fights but that doesn't mean it's a requirement to greatness.

Even if it was, Mayweather from an entertainment point of view has

exciting fights against:
Augustus
Castillo 1
Cotto
Maidana 1

Rewatchable masterclasses against:

Corrales
N'dou
Gatti
Canelo

He's not exactly Chacon or Yaegashi levels of exciting but you don't have to be to be great

 

While I essentially agree with what you are saying, I do think you have to have a signature win or two against an all-time great in his prime to be considered at the level the OP is talking about. Floyd beat a lot of very good fighters, many rather easily, but the three biggest names on his resume are a young Canelo and old De La Hoya and Pacquiao. It's not Mayweather's fault as to when he fought Canelo and the Golden Boy but I do believe it is his fault we did not see him fighting Pac Man in 2009 or 2010.

Pretty Boy is obviously an all-time great, I just don't think he is a top ten type ATG.

 

I guess we're getting mixed up on what great fight means.

 

Mayweather is absolutely nowhere near to Ali and Tyson in terms of popularity worldwide. Everybody outside of boxing fans worldwide knows who are Ali and Tyson, and plenty don't even know who the hell is Mayweather. That's a fact, not an opinion. So stop pretending he's on their level

 

Not one of those you mentioned I’d call a great fighter.
Canelo was probably better than Hatton but Hatton got robbed of being able to give Mayweather a proper fight.
The Pac fight was just a joke compared to what it could have been, Mayweather avoided him for years.
I thought Maidana won by a round in the first fight, Floyd was older, but that’s a nothing fight when you look at other great fighters best fights.
Floyd doesn’t have a signature win anywhere. He cheated himself out of having any really

 

Strip clubs are a helluva of an investment vehicle.

 

Just because the Oscar fight was billed as Fight Of The Century doesn't mean it was; it was only 7 years into the century, and 5 years after Lewis vs Tyson. Dubois vs Trevor Bryan was billed as "The Battle For Freedom & Peace" - it doesn't mean Trevor Bryan is George Washington, it's just a slogan to sell the fight.

Oscar was already on a steep decline at the point; he was lucky against Felix Sturm, in a fight he should have lost, and got stopped by Hopkins at 160 and boiled himself back down. Even then, he still gave Floyd a lot more problems than Mayweather anticipated he would. He tried to time it perfectly, and it still almost backfired. A prime Oscar at 147 would have given Floyd serious issues, and it is a difficult one to pick; I actually think De La Hoya beats Mayweather at 147 prime for prime.

Mayweather-Pac is the actual Fight Of The Century on paper up to now, but it happened years too late; it should have happened between 2009 and 2012, but Floyd waited until Marquez flatlined Manny before making the fight. Not an ATG win really; if he beat Manny 6 months after Pacquiao's destruction of Hatton, it would be a totally different argument.

Hatton was another one; he moved up to welterweight, struggled badly against Luis Collazo, was pretty lucky to get the decision, and that's when Floyd started to take an interest. De La Hoya beat a pre-Ward version of Gatti more convincingly than Floyd did; he would have taken him out in the opening round if he had another 10/15 seconds.

He does have legacy-defining fights that are often overlooked in favor of the big names, which really aren't his best wins in my view: Judah, Gatti, Hatton, Manny etc, he fought versions of them that had started to show serious frailties. I think Floyd's destruction of Angel Manfredy was a much better win than the Gatti one, to be honest. Arguably his best win for me was Genaro. Corrales was another great win, as was the 2nd Castillo fight, where he put all the doubts from the first fight to bed. I rank the Canelo win highly, too.

AJ vs Jake Paul is the 3rd biggest fight of all time in terms of revenue/purse. That does nothing for Joshua's legacy; neither does the McGregor fight for Floyd. Null and void as a legacy argument. He had a remarkable ability to shine **** and sell it as legacy-enhancing 24-carat gold when it was nothing of the sort. There's a reason he aged out De La Hoya and Mosley, and doesn't have a Paul Williams, Maravilla, or Margarito on his resume.

When he started focusing almost entirely on maximizing fight revenue, fighting exclusively in Vegas under his own terms with his own officials, and waiting for fighters to decline, this is when his legacy faces serious scrutiny and doesn't hold up against the truly elite greats. The catchweight business against JM Marquez was a masterclass in how to gain a serious physical advantage before you even get in the ring, very dubious conduct.

The idea he's the best ever doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you compare his resume and best wins to the likes of Hearns, Leonard, SRR, and Duran. Napoles beats Floyd at 147 too; it's a high bar, but if you're gonna proclaim you're the best, these are the types of names you need to prove you're better than, and nothing about Floyd ever convinced me he could hang with any of them, especially the likes of Robinson or Leonard.

If we're talking as the best ever businessman and marketer in the sport, there's definitely a stronger case there. But the Duran that beat Leonard, the Leonard that beat Hearns, and Hearns that beat Duran would absolutely eviscerate Floyd, I think.

A 38-year-old Mosley nearly took him out in the 2nd round; imagine if that was the Hearns that flattened Duran in the same scenario - it would have been over, even if it was Mosley from 7/8 years earlier. To call him the best ever in and around this caliber of fighter is disingenuous and is something that Floyd has manifested himself, spoken into existence, and without any serious credibility to back it up once you peel back the layers of his resume.