The Genius of Prize Fighting: PRETTY BOY FLOYD 'MONEY' MAYWEATHER

I like the guy's boxing, but what is with you Floydboy cats and this unironic fanboy ****? You're not getting a cut, man.

 

I think some of you guys overstate his shrewdness/smartness outside the ring. Not to say that he didn't demonstrate some basic savvy, but his act wasn't exactly revelatory, it's old as dirt. The stars aligned for Floyd in a unique way, he benefited from a rare combination of factors.

One, he's a boxing (idiot) savant, few possess his ability. That, combined with some carefully calibrated matchmaking allowed him to hold on to the '0', in turn allowing him to milk the bad boy act for years on end. The longer he maintained his undefeated record, the longer people would tune in to see if he'd lose it.

(Just to clarify, that's not to say he waited out every notable opponent, or that any of those guys necessarily beat him if he'd faced them sooner, but he was definitely heedful in his opponent selection post-140.)

Two, he had Al Haymon, whose role in Mayweather's financial moves it isn't possible to overstate.

Three, he had some really marketable foes to bust through PPV records with.

And none of that is a knock. You make your own luck to an extent — even with the stars lined up, there still needs to be some vision and drive to realize the promise written in them. More to say that he's no business genius or mogul.


Guys have been copycatting the Floyd Formula for about a decade with relatively limited success. They might have Al, they might have a willingness to run off at the mouth, but they don't have the same chops in the ring or the marquee dance partners. Then you get a guy like Andre Ward, on the other hand, who had comparable chops (if not the De La Hoyas, Cottos, Canelos and Pacquiaos), and is generally a much more intelligent and thoughtful man than Floyd outside the ring, but he never had Al and nor was he willing to make a pantomine out of his public persona.

 

Floyd was a ATG boxer but I'm not convinced he's the mastermind you paint his out to be or that he's charasmatic or verbally articulate.
The top stars will have top people around them to advise and gameplan for them.
Floyd rebranded after his retirement and leant in to the heel persona that didn't take any skill and it wasn't because of his ability on the mic.
What it did do was maximise his PPV potential by pulling in punters who would pay and watch to see if he would get beaten which is a good move.
I don't think that is all Floyd though and I'll explain why. If Floyd was that shrewd then his ability to manage his money would be far better than it is. It's clear to see that gambling and spending money like it's going out of fashion is not a sustainable behaviour it isn't an indicator of someone being shrewd either.
It should also be noted that Floyd was fortunate with the timing of his career in respect to the Heavyweight division lacking any excitement during his career. If you put Ali's era or when the likes of Hagler. Hearns or Duran then Floyd would simpily would not have been even half as big as he was.
So I'm not dumping on Floyd as he was clearly a great talent in the ring but I don't buy that he was some mastermind because the evidence points in the other direction.
I agree speaking English is important in terms of marketing but again Floyd was hardly a great speaker and therefore that part of it didn't really add to maximising sales. Tyson Fury on the other hand is confident in his speech can trash talk and can be funny as well. that is a different skill set that a lot of boxers do not have and it's not really something that can be learnt as people are either funny and charasmatic or there not.

So in short nearly everything you have written can be proven to be false and therefore is just fanboy knob gobbling.

 

Floyd would have loved to have sponsors and endorsements. Problem is the vast majority of companies try to avoid association with a known wife beater.

Floyd didn't make a billion dollars. He's being sued by jewelers and car dealerships for non-payment. His kids couldn't pay the driver they hired. And Floyd's done a window commercial, currently shilling pellet guns, and has to do exhibitions with YouTubers.

Don't be a cuck.

 

If you want to believe and insist that Floyd made a billion dollars, go for it. No need to be an angry cuck.

Just understand and know that's it's creepy that you care so much about how much another man has made.

You were up at midnight typing this essay, FFS.

 

canelo's english is way better than usyk's. he understands and answers questions without much of a trouble. usyk's english is basically non-existent and watered down to the most basic words.

 

BRAVO BRAVO very well said. Full honours on this post. Says it all really.

 

He only really committed to the heel role around the time of Gatti, his first PPV. Prior to that, he'd flitted between masks for a while, had dipped his toe into the bad guy waters but tended to come back around to presenting himself in a more personable light (I'd guess at least partially on account of Arum's counsel). Being personable tends to work best if you're perceived as a crowdpleasing fighter. Or you get a guy like De La Hoya, a special case in that he possessed a very rare X factor, being like an Enrique Iglesias with a dynamite left hook, possessing the magnestism to draw women and casual fans to fights yet still able to hold the admiration of his male Chicano fanbase — whether by nature or contrivance, he trod the line of winsomeness just precisely enough to please most everyone (excepting some Mexican nationals who never forgave him for putting the beats on JCC, of course).

Floyd gradually came to some kind of realization that, for all his technical and athletic ability, he did not possess that kind of innate superstar quality and settled on a schtick defined by snotty arrogance, crass immodesty and (importantly) flashing the spoils of success and rubbing Joe Blow's face in it. Not very sophisticated, but it made him a pile of loot in combination with factors already mentioned. His act obviously had roots in some genuine bitterness at having not been embraced by the public the way the Rays and Oscars were (I think Floyd, at one point, would very much have liked to have been the darling), but was obviously cartoonishly overblown for the sake of creating a gimmick by which to generate noise around himself.

It is what it is. Mayweather's really a pretty dry, uncharismatic, withdrawn guy behind all the barking. Great boxer, though.

Well, Floyd is good at everything and can fight in about any style to a high standard.

 

His pay per views fight alone generated over $1.7 Billion that is verifiable fact not fiction and we know he took the lion share of this. I cannot say he got all the money he earned because Top Rank shortchanged in the early part of his career but they ****ed because he left became his own boss and creamed in all the PPV revenues.