Fighters Floyd Mayweather Jr ducked?

Oscar was old and worth a shitload of money. Williams and Margarito were young, big, rough tough guys and Floyd saw no reason to risk it against him when he knew people would not only assume he'd beat them, but assume he could beat better, bigger guys despite providing no evidence.

Floyd has a very good resume. I think the real gripe against him is he was sort of on the semi-seniors tour a lot of high profile boxers go on when he really hit his peak in fame and some people rate him as welter when he really shouldn't be. Who did he fight at welter who would have a serious shot at beating a great welter when Floyd fought them? Oscar, Mosley and Pac were definitively past prime when Floyd fought them. Berto, Ortiz, Maidana, Guerrero, etc were definitively average and they were viewed as such coming into the fights with Floyd.

Cotto, Hatton and Canelo were good wins and Mosley was coming off a good fight with Cotto and smashing up Marg.

 

Well you're wrong on both counts.

Many picked Oscar to win, whereas against either Williams or Margarito Floyd would have been a prohibitive favourite. Secondly, everyone ("real" fans or otherwise) saw this as the biggest fight for Floyd at the time.

Here's the thing though.....

Sure the risk reward ratio was good for Mayweather, but don't kid yourself...every top fighter in history looked at the risk reward ratio. Why the hell do you think Hagler signed to fight a Sugar Ray Leonard than hadn't fought in three and a half years and was previously a Welterweight? It made good financial sense. Floyd isn't the only one to jump at a lucrative opportunity. More importantly though...Oscar was a HELL OF A risk. Floyd's own father didn't want him to take that fight. many fans thought Oscar may knock him out. Double L, the poster, actually said (before the fight was signed) that Floyd would never fight Oscar. The feeling among many was that Mayweather had bitten off more than he could chew. Floyd was the favourite....sure...he was the P4P and Oscar was yes heading towards the twilight of his career...but Oscar was considered a VERY LIVE underdog.

So don't attempt to change history in the presence of The Sly One. ;)

 

The real gripe against Floyd (and I have this gripe too btw) is that he didn't fight Pacquaio in 2010 when pacquio was at his zenith! Still Pacquiao is partly to blame for that also. Where you have two a-list superstars each with equal claim to the A side of the promotion (like I said before, first time in history this has happened)...it's bloody difficult to make a fight. in past superfights one guy definitely had more pull than the other...or put a different way..one guy definitely needed the other more....but in this case, each was equal superstar. I say again...never happened before. So in hindsight...it's no surprise that it took so long to make that fight.

 

nah man. You're the one rewriting history. Except for DLH fanatics (a la DoubleL), most hardcore fans didn't really care for that fight (it might have been an exciting matchup for causual fans, but they are the kind of people who would be excited with a Tyson-PBF fight today, so their opinion is irrelevant). It was viewed as a decent, but nothing special matchup. Pretty much every harcore boxing fans stopped caring about DLH after the Hopkins fiasco, since it became obvious that the guy heart was no longer in the sport.

At the time, I was a big PBF fan, and I didn't care enough to even catch a stream.

 

Yeah, what you say may be partly true but MY point is that it was the biggest fight for PBF at the time...hardcore fan or not. Let's be honest, dude, no one was clamouring for a Mayweather Williams fight at that time and certainly not a Margarito fight

 

It was a big fight money wise, but it wasn't a big fight legacy wise imo. A cotto or Margarito fight would have been much more meaningful at the time. Anyway, the point is moot since the DLH fight was before the Hatton fight, and I said that his pre-hatton career was good.

 

Saying Ortiz, Guerrero and Maidana were considered legit at the time and then saying Williams and Margarito would've been underdogs that nobody wanted to see Floyd fight is utter hypocritical horseshit. It was the exact opposite.


Floyd would've been the favorite but those the were the fights to make and people were calling for them. The others were showcase fights and everyone knew it.

 

The key phrase here is "at the time". Williams and Margarito would have been relevant if there wasn't a guy called Oscar De La Hoya around. The point is, he didn't duck those guys if he didn't fight them because he was fighting Oscar. Oscar was no easy payday.

In Floyd's post Hatton career...Canelo, Mosley and Cotto were more than decent matchups. He fit in a few B level titlists in there from time to time but name one great fighter who hasn't? At that stage of his career who should Mayweather have fought (with the exception of Pacquiao) other than Ortiz, Guerrero and Maidana? Serious question because perhaps I'm missing something.

 

Brother Sly,

Surely, You and REED Can AGREE that Paul Williams Posed More of a THREAT to Floyd, than Chris Byrd Did to Lennox...





REED:hammert:

 

Irrelevant. Both were off the radar and bigger fights were looming.

both were southpaws to your earlier point. Nobody even heard of Paul Williams in those days. Fighting him was meaningless compared with fighting Oscar or Hatton

 

It's Most Certainly RELEVANT in the Realm of HARDCORE Boxing Fans, Sly...

You're NOT Debating w/a TMT Hat Wearer, Homey::...Comparing Paul Williams to Chris Byrd is a JOKE...Analogies like THAT is Why You're Considered a Floyd APOLOGIST...You're INCAPABLE of Objectively Assessing His Resume...





REED:hammert:

 

Floyd fought Oscar in May of '07. Margarito didn't lose to Mosley until January of 09 and Williams lost to Martinez in December of '09. The DLH fight was never in the way and it was never and either/or proposition. He fought Hatton, and when Marg and Williams were the fights to make he retired and came back against a feather weight.

I can totally get why Floyd would want to fight Hatton and DLH instead of Marg and Williams and I don't really have a problem with it. The reason Floyd catches flack is because groupies like yourself try to scam and scheme and manipulate and lie like you're the licensed promoter of Floyds legacy.

 

It's not about how "people be hatin on tha brotha" or what he couldashouldawoulda accomplished if he had the opportunity. It's about assessing what he actually proved and accomplished at that stage of his career. You hold him in a certain regard and the reason you turn into such a shifty lawyer when you defend is because you know what he actually did doesn't support the status you give him.

You think he'd beat a prime Hagler in a straight up non p4p match yet this motherfucker retired to avoid the big welter a that were around, and they were slightly above average fighters...

 

"You're NOT Debating w/a TMT Hat Wearer" either, homeboy.

So don't try that straw man shit with me. We were never comparing Paul Williams to Chris Byrd in a P4P sense, we were talking about fighting a southpaw, a style that he's never fought before...in the context of you suggesting that Floyd ducked him due to never fighting him. Therefore the Chris Byrd point is indeed analogous. Try again.

 

I'm no groupie, homie. I back up my position with facts and sound logic. I know the game. I'm a Mayweather fan, but no groupie. I back a winner so there's no shame in my fandom. Everyone here is a fan of one fighter or another and most back loosurs (Donald Trump voice)

 

Fittingly, who can ever forget this absolute classic gem from October 2009 - Floyd Mayweather calls into the live radio-show featuring R.A. the Rugged-Man....who just happens to know boxing inside-out and.....has an attitude:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YHmCYlIsX5E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k0Hz5-uYHso" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

QUALITY.

 

Yep, even though he was.

 

:nono: Youz never did like El 7 mares, youz never did or his cirrhosis of the liver bandanas, ok, ok, sure he was unskilled, a pillow-biter, and kept a few things under wraps,.. but on a disgracefully long list, Floyd ducked him worst of all.

If he was trying to duck Pacquiao though,... you gotta admit, he did it in the best possible way that he could :crafty: . Yes, admittedly, Floyd did expose his genuinely defined "haters" for a few weeks, but only after years of being endlessly and justifiably owned by them (and it paid dividends too, who didn't enjoy those white-privileged tantrums? :crafty: ...the Baldomir post-fight press conference was an absolute peach,...the very reason I watch boxing right there).

 

It depends on your definition is "duck"...what is inarguable to any half-objective fan is that Mayweather's resume could/should have been better, particularly after he became a big box office draw in 2007. It's different trying to get the big fights when you are on regular HBO fighting in Fresno and when you are selling a million PPVs on overpriced bouts.

Once he became a huge star who could command the fights he wanted, he was not active and too frequently fought overmatched opponents and suckers bought into it and looked for any excuse to defend him, whether it was overrating the opponents, or saying "Pacquiao is fighting so and so", as if a second mismatch makes the first mismatch better.

 

mayweather jr clearly ducked stevie johnston. he was offered the fight multiple times. both were with top rank, and each time he took on a lesser opponent. johnston was a title holder at lightweight, and mayweather jr was struggling to make 135lbs. back then the rumor was he was hesitant to face a southpaw, and paranoid arum was trying to get him beat.

 

HE DUCKED KING KHAN

 

Wise decision. That fight was a no win situation.

Still he sat by with pride as he watched one of his sons (Canelo) dismantle the Pakistani in a few short rounds.

 

Nah I think he saw Khan like everyone else does: ultra-chinney parki 'try-hard' who was desperate to cash-out any way he could...