Who Can / Could Beat Mayweather?

I mean Mayweather from like 2010-2014, since he's reached this super status. Mayweather from previous years at lower weight classes was really a different fighter in a lot of aspects.

But with Mayweather's reign of dominance, who would have been able to beat him?

I think the key things to look at are the Maidana fight, obviously and Cotto/Ortiz fights. Ortiz did legitimately push Mayweather onto the ropes in the early moments. He was unable to really do much with it, but that kind of "fighter without a plan" style did see Mayweather a little bit pushed back. I personally felt that Mayweather was playing with Cotto in the fight, trying to make it seem more competitive than it was. After the Marcos fight, I'm perhaps changing my mind on that. Cotto had Mayweather on the ropes for much of the fighter, but didn't really land any punches. Maidana kept May on the ropes for around half of the fight, and was able to throw a high rate of punches at him with mixed successes.

For me, Maidana is a fairly light puncher. He can catch people, but all in all his power isn't stunning. That style of keeping May on the ropes and roughing him up like Maidana did would be really the only way he could be beat to me. In the middle of the ring, no one is beating him.

So are there any other "bulldog" fighters who would be able to do what Maidana did, and actually have the power to slow Mayweather down? Maidana couldn't do it and when he was getting tired, May started to look a million dollars (understatement) as always. So would anyone have been able to put him on the ropes (which Cotto, Maidana and Ortiz [briefly] did) and actually have the power to damage him and slow him down?


PS. I'm not reading any of the generic comments about *****s, *******s and whatever nonsense. If someone says no one could beat Mayweather, that's a genuine possibility, so show some respect for people's opinions. It's probably best that we don't mention Pacquiao just to avoid the **** storm. Pac's my number 1 of all time but a "who ducked who?" deviation won't achieve anything. I'm just interested in some names of guys who might have stylistically gave May a hard time.

PS 2. Someone around the same weight preferably. Like I reckon GGG murders Mayweather, but they're not really close to each other in proper weight classes. Someone around Welterweight is what I'm looking for.

 

I've been calling for the Khan fight for YEARS, a long time before it even got put into the mix. I too like the possibility of Mayweather fighting someone with superior speed. Khan's main issue are guys with big power who can rough him up. May would like to be on the outside and there is a CHANCE that Khan is quicker at punching than May is at slipping.

Agree with it all, and I actually have Floyd winning by KO (Catching Khan on the jaw with a counter).

But as said above, I actually really do like the fight.

 

Paul Williams is an interesting choice. I'm gonna look at it more.

With Pacquiao, the key punch to me is the straight left. Pac throws that out of absolutely no where at lightning fast speed. For some reason, completely fabricated in my head, I actually think Mayweather could be dropped quite easy (he just never gets hit...ever....for it to be a thing). I think Pac could potentially drop him out of nowhere with the punch (not KO him though, just an off balance drop). Mayweather could have the PERFECT fight with Pac though. Like, his crowning moment. Pac struggles with fighters who don't come forward to him (Mosley when he ran, Cottey when he covered up, JMM on the backfoot and countering in the 3rd fight). Mayweather is all of these styles combined, to a much higher level. Add in that Pac will throw like 10 punches, I reckon we could see May blocking all 10 punches and looking absolutely amazing in doing so.

As for Khan, I don't actually rate Khan that highly. I think he's worse now than he was a few years ago. His hand speed is still spectacular though, and that's something we haven't really see May deal with before.

 

I see tall rangy fights are guys who will eventually get frustrated and try to fight on the inside with May. No one has the intelligence that he has. They think they need to bring the fight to get the judges on their side. Mayweather would happily stand at the other side of the ring for the rest of his life until they come for him, at which time he slips away, lands his counters and gets out of range.

 

I don't even think his ring IQ would come into it. I think, while Khan's hand speed is nuts, that May would still block most of the punches and would still have the speed to slip and counter Khan, and would hurt the hell out of him in doing so.