By Mark Vester
Former five division champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. made a recent appearance on the always wild program called Sports Rage Radio . During the broadcast of the show, Mayweather unloaded some venom on current pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao, ex-rivals Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya, and said he is far from broke.
On retirement, Mayweather says that he is very happy to be away from the sport of boxing. He claims to have over "$600,000,000" million dollars. He says if he does decide to return to the sport of boxing, it won't be for the money.
"I'm happy to be retired. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling comfortable. My son will start boxing this year. My son is 10. Both of my boys will start boxing this year. I'm feeling good. I did what I had to do with this sport and I feel good about that. When God says it's your time to give it up, it's your time to give it up. If God says it's my time to come back, I'll come back. My body can never heal. Majority of my professional career I did not heal. There were certain things in the fight game that I just did not like. I'm sitting on well over $600,000,000 million dollars so you know I'm not doing it for the money [if he comes back]," Mayweather said.
As far as Pacquiao being called the pound-for-pound best in the world, Mayweather far from agrees. He feels there is no comparison between him and Manny Pacquiao.
"I take nothing away from Manny Pacquiao. He's a good fighter, but you have to remember that he's been knocked out in the first round before and three or four years ago he got outboxed by a washed up Erik Morales. That answers your question right there. Manny Pacquiao fought one of the Marquez brothers, knocked him down three times and still got a draw, so we know he got outboxed in that fight for real, and then he fought him again and won by one point. You know me I've dominated competitors, everyone that's been put in front of me for many, many years," Mayweather said.
"Manny Pacquiao just beat Oscar De La Hoya who I beat two years ago. I beat Hatton, flattened him over a year ago. When Hatton comes over to the US, between 3,000 to 10,000 fans come. When he fought Floyd Mayweather, like 50,000 fans come over. A fight never sold out like that before. De La Hoya never did numbers with anyone like that before. Floyd Mayweather must bring the numbers. That's why when anyone speaks on boxing and I've been retired for over a year, on HBO and Showtime, when they speak on boxing - my name comes up."
Mayweather also downplayed Pacquiao's stoppage win over De La Hoya. And then went further and said a potential Pacquiao victory over Ricky Hatton is not an impressive win either. Mayweather claims to have taken everything away from Hatton when he knocked out the Manchester fighter in December 2007.
"Against Oscar De La Hoya, they made me move up to 154 in a no-win situation with Oscar coming down from 167. I didn't complain. Bob Arum went out on the limb and fought for Manny Pacquiao to fight Oscar at 147, a weight Oscar hasn't made for nine or ten years. That right there is going to dry the body up. De La Hoya's body was dead after only three rounds. He was no good no more," Mayweather said.
"When I fought De La Hoya, he chose my gloves. Have you ever heard of a fighter choosing another fighter's gloves? I couldn't even choose my gloves with Oscar De La Hoya so they are always trying to put me in a no-win situation. I beat this guys hands down and he couldn't touch me. Let them put me at 147 and give me eight ounce gloves. The gloves they gave me were custom made pillows. They have been pulling dirty tricks to take me down for years and they couldn't."
"When Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao fight, if Manny Pacquiao wins I wouldn't be surprised. I took everything out of Ricky Hatton. Early in his career he already fought all of his hard fights and in the pinnacle of his career - he met up with the best and he lost. It took everything out of him. He had hard fights with Kostya Tszyu, Mayweather, Vince Phillips. I took everything out of him. He has nothing left."
As far as legacy, Mayweather believes that he is the best fighter of all-time. Better than Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, or any other fighter in the boxing history books.
"When I was in the sport of boxing, I did it my way. I was happy, I was comfortable and I left the sport at the top. I'm the only fighter who wasn't scared to say that I was young, black and rich. I'm the only fighter who spent a million dollars to get out of a contract with Bob Arum where I wasn't happy. Things that I wanted to do in the sport - I did it," Mayweather said.
"Name one fighter who was in the sport of boxing for eleven years, a champion for ten years and won titles in five different weight classes and won the official belt. A lot of De La Hoya's opponents were handpicked. He was a good fighter and got to where he got to with a lot of money behind him. Manny Pacquiao is a good fighter, but how can he be the best for pound best if he just got outboxed four years ago by an old Erik Morales. Roy Jones' opponents were hand picked. He was like Muhammad Ali, once you take their legs away, because their legs were their defense, they became sitting ducks. You see what happens then."
"No matter what I did it was never good enough. I'm the only fighter to get this huge without an endorsement deal. You look back at my trunks - I had no deal. Look at Manny Pacquiao, he has No Fear. Look at De La Hoya, he has Puma. I'm self made. I was blessed with something called personality. De La Hoya has no personality so he needs a Richard Schaefer or a Bob Arum to spend a lot of money to get him to certain places, to make things happen for him. For me it was just hard fighting."
>Mayweather quotes transcribed by Mark Vester<
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