By Edward Chaykovsky
WBC/WBA welterweight and junior middleweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (47-0, 26KOs) raised quite a few eyebrows over some of the comments that he made in his recent interview with Stephen A. Smith, which aired on ESPN First Take.
While he has a lot of respect for fighters like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Robinson - he says none of the fighters from the past were better than him.
"No one can ever brainwash me to make me believe that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali was better than me," Mayweather said. "No one could ever brainwash me and tell me that. But one thing I will do, I'm going to take my hat off to them and respect those guys because those are the guys that paved the way for me to be where I'm at today."
He didn't stop there. Mayweather explained his reasoning for being than Ali - including a jab at Ali's defeat to Leon Spinks and the methods Ali used to defeat George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle."
"He only fought in one weight class. Leon Spinks only had seven fights," Mayweather said. "Never put a fighter in there with Floyd Mayweather with seven fights. Take punishment and let a man tire yourself out from beating you? You hit him with a few punches and go down and quit and you want to be glorified for that?"
Mayweather returns on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas when he faces WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in a mega-fight unification.
