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was that floyd at his best though, even if he did lose?
we're talking prime for prime here.Comment
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"Repeated mantra among “experts” is that the way to beat Mayweather (who, ironically, has never been beaten) is to pressure him a la Jose Luis Castillo. It is well documented that many feel that Castillo should have won his first fight with Mayweather (though 3 judges saw it differently) and point to this as the blueprint for Mayweather’s fistic Waterloo. More importantly, Hatton’s fans point to the fact that while Mayweather went the distance with Castillo (twice), Hatton crushed him in four.
Mayweather-Castillo I has served as a flashpoint of controversy between Mayweather’s fans and those who insist that the pound-for-pound champ should have taken a loss that night. The outcry following the match prompted Floyd to call for an immediate rematch, which was another unanimous decision, by an even wider margin that before. These facts are not up for dispute. While fans constantly point to Mayweather-Castillo I as the Rosetta Stone of a Mayweather defeat, few care to admit (or are even aware) that Mayweather fought Castillo with a torn rotator cuff that night and still managed to win a wide-margin unanimous decision. The question that has not often been asked is this: If Castillo possessed the tools to defeat Mayweather so resoundingly as alleged, why was he not able to summon the same performance in the second match? Further, why was he beaten even more convincingly in the rematch? Indeed it may be that Castillo’s performance in the first fight was impressive precisely because Mayweather was injured and the reason that the effort he turned against a healthy Mayweather seemed nothing more than pedestrian."Comment
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whenever this guy makes a thread, there are a lot of pages and responses.Comment
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I've gone over this more than a few times but here I go again.
I think the main thing here is that Mayweather is not Ray Leonard. He's not a natural welterweight who stands 5'10 nor does he possess the combination of speed and power that Leonard did at 147, especially in combinations which Mayweather rarely throws at welterweight.
I never thought that Leonard fought a ****** fight the first time, he fought the same type of fight that had beaten all his previous opponents in the professional ranks, including the master-boxer Wilfred Benitez and later Thomas Hearns. He was a dancer in the Olympics but as he got more seasoned as a pro, he adopted a more flat-footed stance in order to punch with greater power and to conserve energy.
Going into the fight, Leonard and his trainer Angelo Dundee felt they could stand their ground and dictate the fight in the middle of the ring, unsuccessfully so. Few other lightweight champions of the past had been able to compete with welterweight champions, especially ones as great as Leonard, arguably a top 2 all-time great welterweight. Duran, despite holding a record of 70 wins and only 1 loss, avenged twice, came into the fight as an underdog.
What they did not take into account was that while Duran had lost some of his power, he was still extremely strong and had great stamina to keep up a terrific pace for 15 rounds. Duran was able to feint Leonard, make him flinch and manhandle him in the clinches. Some of the punches Sugar Ray absorbed would have KO'd most of the lightweights Duran fought. Leonard never wanted to fight off the ropes and brawl with Duran, he was forced to. The strategy was to keep the fight in the middle of the ring because Leonard and Dundee did not think backing up against Duran was the way to beat him, considering that he had handed out beatings to slicksters such as Ernesto Marcel, Esteban DeJesus, Ken Buchanan, Edwin Viruet and Vilomar Fernandez.
When Leonard was asked what was the key to his victory in the rematch, he did not say footwork, he did not say defense, he said it was his physical strength and size that allowed him to hold off Duran in the clinches. Along with Leonard's advantages in height, reach and youth, Duran was no longer able to duplicate what he had done in the Brawl in Montreal.
However this does not mean he could not compete with Mayweather. As I said, being slick doesn't necessarily mean you'll automatically frustrate and beat Duran. Ernesto Marcel had one of the best right hand leads I've ever seen and gave a boxing lesson to a young Alexis Arguello, yet a 19 year old Roberto Duran was able to beat him decisively. The difference was that above 135 lbs Duran was fighting bigger opponents and his strength and power was no longer as telling. He had to rely on his skills to beat men who had significant advantages in height and reach.
Anyone who doesn't think Duran could compete with Mayweather at 147, take a look at these videos:
Mayweather continually being back up against the ropes by an inferior fighter in Ricky Hatton.
5:40
The difference is that Duran does not smother his own work and he is much more defensively adept.Last edited by TheGreatA; 02-05-2010, 01:00 PM.Comment
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