By Chris Robinson
It’s that time of the year again as the sport of boxing is still buzzing because of another Floyd Mayweather sighting. Last weekend the 34-year old virtuoso scored a shocking 4th round knockout over Victor Ortiz inside of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, and with it he captured the WBC welterweight championship of the world.
Mayweather upped his record to 42-0 with 26 knockouts but there was a slight controversy surrounding his latest win, as he caught Ortiz off guard after a break with a quick left-right combination that dropped Victor and ended the fight. Moments earlier, Ortiz had been docked a point for an intentional head butt and Mayweather returned the favor with what many are calling a ‘cheap shot’.
While recently talking to St. Louis’ Deandre Latimore, a junior middleweight contender who served as a chief sparring partner for Mayweather in camp, he seemed to agree with Floyd’s actions in doing everything he could to emerge victorious.
“Floyd went in and he took care of his business,” said Latimore. “It was a jungle and you are in there to survive. Protect yourself at all times.”
The attention has now turned, once again, to a possible fight between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who himself is getting ready for a November 12th trilogy bout with Juan Manuel Marquez. The thought of the two men facing off has captured our imaginations for the past few years but Latimore doesn’t see it as much of a contest.
“Oh man, Floyd would kill him. Floyd can turn it on whenever he feels like it and he’d kill Manny. Manny hasn’t impressed me. I feel as though he’s not on the same level as Floyd,” Latimore said bluntly.
As for his own career, Latimore has brushed off talks of a third meeting with Brooklyn’s Sechew Powell, a fight that would be for the right to challenge IBF titleholder Cornelius ‘K9’ Bundrage. Latimore upset Powell via 7th round TKO in June of 2008 but dropped a majority decision to him in March of last year.
Powell is coming off of a unanimous decision loss to Bundrage a few months ago and Latimore sees no reason in meeting him yet again.
“There’s no point at all,” the 26-year old said. “Why should I fight him? He just lost a title fight and his next fight is an eliminator fight for the title again?”
In closing, you can sense how eager Latimore is for a shot at either Bundrage or any of the big names in the junior middleweight class.
“Most definitely I would like a shot at him. I aint going to talk about nobody or what anyone is or isn’t, but I feel like he’s a guy I can beat. I can beat any of the champions at 154.”
