Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) and ESPN's Stephen A. Smith traded some words over Mayweather's career-ending fight against Andre Berto in September 2015.
Mayweather announced his retirement after dominating Berto over twelve rounds at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was carried by Showtime Pay-Per-View.
Heading into that fight, there were a lot of fans and critics who were unhappy with the selection of Berto - who was viewed as an overmatched opponent who had seen better days. Berto had also averaged one fight per year from 2012 to 2014, and lost three of his last six fights.
Smith tried to make a point about Berto being an overmatched opponent, which annoyed Mayweather.
"If I’m not mistaken, [Berto is] a two-time world champion, he’s an Olympian, he took a couple of losses, but he bounced back each and every time," Mayweather said.
When Smith tried to press the issue, Mayweather took some shots at Smith's employer, ESPN, televising Pacquiao's fight against 2012 Australian Olympian Jeff Horn.
Heading into that fight, Horn was a huge underdog and some predicted a mismatch. But Horn managed to pull off an unexpected shocker, when he defeated Pacquiao by way of a twelve round unanimous decision to win the WBO welterweight title. The contest drew a monster television rating for ESPN.
"So it was OK for Manny Pacquiao to fight the guy he just fought. But it’s a problem for me to fight a two-time world champion. The guy Pacquiao fight, we don’t even know. We don’t even know who he is, I don’t even know his name right now. OK ... that fight shouldn’t have even been on ESPN - at all," Mayweather said.
The oddest thing about the interview, was the fact that Smith - who was part of the broadcast team for Pacquiao-Horn and ripped the decision several times - was unable get Horn's name right.
He called him "Joe Horn" and it's not the first time.