By Keith Idec
Floyd Mayweather Jr. hasn’t had fights as close together as his May 4 victory over Robert Guerrero and his Sept. 14 showdown with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez since 2001.
Boxing’s pound-for-pound king has fought just five times in the past 5½ years as well. But even at 36, Mayweather isn’t at all concerned about facing an unbeaten, 23-year-old junior middleweight just four months and 10 days after dominating Guerrero at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
“It’s good,” Mayweather said Wednesday before his open workout at the Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas. “I think I’m sharp. I’ve been boxing a lot of rounds and actually, this is one of my best training camps so far. So I’m happy to be getting right back in there. I’m really going to be a lot sharper this fight than I was the last fight.”
A temporary retirement, financial freedom from making enormous purses and a two-month incarceration are among the reasons for Mayweather’s limited activity in recent years.
Before the Guerrero and Alvarez fights, the last time Mayweather (44-0, 26 KOs) boxed twice in such a short span was when he defeated Carlos Hernandez in their WBC super featherweight title fight on May 26, 2001, in Mayweather’s native Grand Rapids, Mich. That fight came four months and six days after Mayweather knocked down the late Diego Corrales five times in a fight he won by 10th-round technical knockout Jan. 20, 2001, in Las Vegas.
The undefeated five-division champion conquered Corrales a little less than three months following his ninth-round stoppage of Emanuel Augustus in Detroit.
Mexico’s Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KOs) has been much busier than the favored Mayweather. The WBC 154-pound champion has fought nine times in the past three years, though obviously not against anyone nearly as skilled and accomplished as Mayweather.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
