Floyd Mayweather Jr. Avoids The Best Fighters

By Tommy Allan One thing about Floyd Mayweather I’ll say straight off the bat is he is the most talented boxer I’ve seen in my lifetime. Floyd’s combination of skill, speed, athleticism to go with his all time great defense would rank above even Jones, Hopkins and Whitaker for me in all round ability. The thing with Floyd is though he will not test himself in the ring against the very best fighter around, it has been like this for the past 7 years ever since he moved into the 140lb division. When Mayweather left 135lb, the fight the fans asked for above all was Floyd against fellow Pound for Pound star, Kostya Tyszu. This fight would never happen as Floyd would go on to have a rather unflattering run in the division taking on the decent Chop Chop Corley and Henry Bruseles before stepping onto HBO PPV to take on WBC title holder, Arturo Gatti. I actually liked the Gatti fight from a fans point of view. I thought Floyd would win pretty easily in the end but I expected Gatti to make a fight of it for a few rounds but obviously that wasn’t to be. Even though the Gatti fight looked interesting on paper theres no excuse for Floyd being over a year at the weight and passing through without taking on the best guy. In 1 of those 3 fights Floyd could and should have taken on the Aussie without him and his fans using the old “we got the official belt” excuse. Dont belts just gather dust, Floyd? Moving onto 147lbs and it really started to become shameless. First we had the fans clamoring for a fight with Antonio Margarito, where Floyd was guaranteed a then career high payday. Instead, Floyd chose to take on the just embarrassingly beaten Zab Judah before trying to set up a fight with Cory Spinks at 154 before being rescued by Dan Goossen and a promised $8m to take on Judah conqueror, Carlos Baldomir. After dusting Judah and Baldomir he would take on De La Hoya winning a SD before stopping Hatton in 10 rounds which set the stage for a fight with Miguel Cotto, or so we thought. At that time Miguel Cotto was flying and had proved himself to be the clear #2 fighter at 147lbs. That did not matter. Mayweather had started setting a trend of avoiding the best and it was something he planned on sticking to. To this day Floyd remains the only fighter whom Miguel Cotto ever called out directly in his career, Cotto wanted the fight so bad that he went out of character and blasted Mayweather several times for his refusal to fight. Floyd would come away with one of the most embarrassing lines I’ve ever heard when pressed on facing Cotto – “Cotto lives too far away”. Now we’re at the stage where we have the two best fighters in the world who are obviously Pacquiao and Mayweather. We have Pacquiao who has fought everyone and Mayweather who undoubtedly has not. We have Top Rank making offer after offer and Mayweather still holds firm with his avoid the best policy. It must have been hard being a fan of Mayweather over the years – One let down after another when it comes to opponents. Floyd should go down as the most talented of the era but if he does not start taking on the guy everyone wants him to face then he’ll never be considered the best. To be the best, you need to have beaten the best. Whens the last time Floyd can claim to have beaten the best?