Floyd Mayweather Avoided Everyone Who Had A Physical Advantage Over Him ... Genius or Fraudster?
I was thinking about this today from a different post, that Floyd never fought anyone who had a size advantage over him, and I don't mean height because height doesn't mean anything if it doesn't include a reach advantage.
But everyone Floyd fought never had a reach advantage over him. At 5' 8" he had a a 72" reach. You can go down Boxrec and see for yourselves that Floyd never fought anyone with an excess of 72" in reach. And it just so happens that the big names that Floyd is accused of ducking had a longer reach than him. Sergio Martinez, Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams.
The Paul Williams one definitely stands out to me. Here's Paul's own words about Floyd avoiding him: "I don't think Floyd Mayweather will fight me anytime," Williams said. "Manny Pacquiao, he might do it, he might step up but not Floyd. I guess Floyd won't fight me because I don't have a vagina."
That X-rated shot, obviously, is a reference to the Baby Mama drama which briefly sent Mayweather to jail and led to domestic battery charges in Las Vegas.
Williams and Peterson don't think that Al Haymon's status as adviser to them, and to Mayweather, is what keeps the fighters apart.
"I was in the barbershop in (Washington) D.C., the other day and the guys were talking about it. They respect Floyd's skills like I do but they were saying they know he won't ever fight me," Williams said.
"If Floyd went to Al and said, "Hey, I want to fight Paul Williams, what can Al do? But Floyd is not going to ever say that. Pacquiao, he fights bigger guys, he's different than Mayweather so maybe I will get to fight him."
Like many others, Williams thinks Mayweather's obsession is being undefeated.
"Floyd ranks himself with Ray Robinson, with Joe Louis, all these guys..but all those great guys, they all lost sometime. Mayweather won't take a hard fight, he won't take the chance of losing."
And that's really what it comes down to, that Floyd avoided any fighter that could have a good chance of beating him, and those fighters were fighters who had a physical advantage over Floyd. It's not secret that Floyd cherry picked his opponents. That was no more evident than when Floyd put out a poll for his fans to pick his next opponent, with Khan and Maidana as polling options. The fans picked Khan, so of course, Floyd fights Maidana. If anyone still doubts that Floyd ducked and dodged opponents, that right there should tell you otherwise. And Maidana was almost a "cherry pick gone wrong."
I suppose it's not secret that Floyd's career is partly a magic act, but I was suddenly aware that Floyd didn't fight anyone with a physical advantage over him. A boxer with a reach advantage over Floyd would have drastically negated one of his biggest advantages—controlling distance.