Was Floyd the greatest evasive fighter ever?

Oh really? He fought Nelson and Chavez at their best weights?

 

Yep. You could put asterisks on just about every fighter's main opponents if you try hard enough. Never cared for Floyd, but he convincingly beat a lot of very good fighters and took amazingly little punishment in return.

 

Pernell had the uncanny ability to make just about anyone look bad.

 

He did not fight the best at the time they were the best. Maybe it was not his fault, but some of that was planned.

 

As already stated, Whitaker didn't face several of his best opponents when they were at their best either.

You can say the same about Sanchez, Ali, Frazier, Toney, Tyson, Holy, Lewis - most fighters, really, if you want to spin it that way.

In fact, it's just about impossible to prove than any fighter was "at his best" at any given moment. But Corrales, Castillo, Hatton and Cotto are some of his main opponents that probably were at their best in any useful definition of the term.

Against Cotto it was Floyd who was past his very best if anything. And while Canelo probably has improved somewhat since Floyd, let's not forget that Floyd was in his mid 30's at the time. Canelo both had youth and a good dose of pro experience while Floyd was aging. Still Floyd schooled him, while also giving up about 20 lbs in the ring. It's amazing that this fight is spinned by Floyd detractors like Floyd had everything in his favor. The 152 lbs catch weight was unnecessary, though.

 

Holyfield fought Lennox when he was pretty good.. He fought Tyson late, but his resume was filled with top fighters. He fought an old Foreman, who was still big and George was not going to outbox Evander.Tyson lost to everyone.. I never rated him top at heavyweight. Ali-much better resume than Floyd. No comparison. Corrales,Hatton were not highly rated or great, and Floyd fought Cotto late, and Cotto to me was a level below elite and not great either..

 

I'd probably agree that Ali has a better resume than Floyd, but if one uses your line of reasoning one could dismiss his victories over Liston and Frazier as them being past their best. Never mind that he was older than Frazier and still quite young and untested for Liston. That's just the way you reason concerning Floyd.

I think I'd agree that Floyd didn't beat any prime ATG, but not many has since it's just so rare that two ATGs are in their primes in the same division. He beat a lot of good and several very good fighters, though, who were in or near their primes - often while being the older and smaller fighter. And he took amazingly little punishment while doing it. This is indisputable.

 

Floyd waiting 5 years to fight Manny is beyond anything anyone ever did except maybe Ray with Hagler. Floyd really did handpick at the right times and catchweights. The one with Canelo baffles me. 2 pounds is something Floyd thought really would be a difference. Why do that? No confidence? 2 pounds?

 

Yeah, the 2 lbs things is very strange. Don't think it really hurt Canelo, since he would continue getting down to 154 for several more years. Cutting an extra 2 lbs for one single fight shouldn't be that hard. But it still put somewhat of a shadow on Floyd for using his star status to make demands like that.

The Pac fight really should have been made earlier, but its hard to know just how to portion out the blame for that. Pac with his talk about being scared for needless certainly has his fair share.

I won't even go into to the whole crazy allegation about Leonard avoiding someone two divisions above him by retiring... A bit how Ward avoided Joshua, I guess.

 

If Floyd had beat Pac in 2010 instead of 2015, Pac losing to Marquez shortly afterwards would still have taken a lot of gloss out of Floyd's victory.

 

You could include a lot of fighters in that conversation. It gets unnecessarily muddled when you focus solely on defense, in my opinion.

As an example, specialists like Locche could conceivably creep in, even though Mayweather is head and shoulders above him as a complete boxer. For all the flak Floyd gets, he never turned in performances quite as negative as I've seen Locche fight.

 

It's not as black and white. There's plenty riding on how you view the fights themselves.

The De La Hoya I saw against Whitaker- a De La Hoya that was still adjusting to welterweight- surpasses the one Floyd faced by a huge margin. Those were two equally close matches. Pernell was further past his prime compared to Floyd at that stage. This, I'd say, is a compelling strike against Mayweather in comparison to Whitaker.

I'd also take Chavez, who I believe had fresher legs, over Pacquiao. Again, both were used up, but Chavez represented the tougher stylistic challenge.

Without thinking about it too much, I'd say Floyd has it on depth. He has many underrated wins like Cotto, Mosley, and even Canelo, who I don't particularly think highly of. Whitaker has Vasquez, who, to be fair, scraped by a green Winky Wright.