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Pound For Pound Champion........I Think Not

By Trevor, Section Other Sports
Posted on Sun May 06 2007 at 10:24 AM EST
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By Trevor Freeman

Last night Max Kellerman said that Floyd Mayweather Jr. had put on a "virtuoso" performance. This is the exact equivalent of me saying Tom Hanks performance in "Joe Versus The Volcano" was "virtuoso". Max Kellerman even called into question what the judge who scored the fight for Oscar De La Hoya was watching. There are only three possible reasons for why Kellerman could have felt this way. They are:

a)    He smoked a blunt with 50 Cent prior to the proceedings.
b)    Floyd Mayweather Jr. set him up with an account over at the Bunny Ranch.
c)    Lennox Lewis is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and threatened to powerbomb Kellerman through the announce table while James Brown did his best Jim Ross impression yelling "Good God Almighty" if Kellerman didn't pimp Floyd during the postfight coverage.

Going into last night's fight Mayweather Jr. said he was going to "massacre" Oscar De La Hoya and yelled "you a pussy and I'm the top draw" at him. Mayweather Jr. did and proved neither last night. The entire fight consisted of Mayweather Jr. backpedaling, counterpunching and not even trying to give the casual fan a memorable performance. For what it's worth, I scored the fight a draw. De La Hoya was the aggressor all night long and was the only fighter in that ring who cared about putting on a show that people will remember.

Anybody who claims that Mayweather Jr. is a "great" fighter simply has forgotten about how good "Sugar" Ray Leonard, "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, and Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns really were. Saying Floyd is better than them is like saying Paris Hilton is better looking now than Jennie Garth was in 1992. It's just not true. All three of those legends would have unloaded a world class ass whipping on Floyd Mayweather Jr. You know why....all three guys had a willingness to actually be a fighter. That's my biggest beef with Floyd. Don't talk all that smack on your HBO documentary and at press conferences up and down the globe if you are going to come out and fight like well.......a "pussy". If Floyd Mayweather Jr. cared about his profession and his legacy, he would have stood in with De La Hoya and exchanged with him. Instead, Mayweather Jr. got on his bicycle and made Oscar chase him all night long.

Anytime I now hear an announcer claim Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the greatest pound for pound fighter on the planet, I am going to react the same way I do when somebody argues that "The Godfather III" is one of the best two movies in that trilogy. I'm going to give it the dismissive "you clearly have no idea what you are talking about" face and put forth the name Jermain Taylor. The difference between Taylor and "Pretty Boy" Floyd is that Taylor fights like somebody who actually likes to fight. To top it off, in the first 27 fights of his career he has already seen Bernard Hopkins twice and Winky Wright once. Plus, he has called out Joe Calzaghe. Both his fights with Hopkins were brutal affairs........affairs I doubt we will ever see Floyd Mayweather Jr. involve himself in.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. did nothing for his legacy last night. In fact he probably lowered what casual fans thought about him. We wanted a performance to remember. Instead Mayweather Jr. gave us a performance to forget. If Floyd cares about his legacy then he will call up Oscar and set up another fight for six months from now. And in that one he will show the world a willingness to fight and he will dispose of a past his prime fighter like he should have done last night.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at trevor.freeman@realityfanforum.com.

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Pound For Pound Champion........I Think Not | 8 comments (8 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Your not a fan of boxing (#1)
by chaddillac on Sun May 06 2007 at 12:20 PM EST

Your a fan of fighting.What was displayed last night was boxing, not fighting. By your standards then the beauty of the fighting styles of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson are completely lost upon you. If you want to tune in to two guys flailing their arms at each other much as Oscar De La Hoya did to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last night then you may want to make that switch over the UFC, but if you can appreciate the technical beauty of defense and counter punching then you would have seen that Floyd Mayweather Jr. In two consecutive rounds Oscar De La Hoya landed a total of seven punches and then eight punches respectively anyone who lands less than ten punches in a given three minute round can not claim to have dominated a fight. FLoyd Mayweather Jr. is a counter puncher what Oscar De La Hoya in his hurry to please the crowd and casual fans much like yourself is play right into Mayweather's hands. For the casual fan with little to no background in watching boxing, not brawling but boxing, then last nights fight was a disappointment, but for the boxing enthusiasts, the purists, last night was a display of technical skill and smart boxing

: Mayweather (#2)
by Trevor on Sun May 06 2007 at 5:11 PM EST

You're right.......my knowledge of boxing extends to watching fights that come on HBO, Showtime and occasional PPVs, so I do not watch it like I do college hoops, the Oakland A's or the NFL. However I have been watching at this clip for at least the last fifteen years. I have at least a decent working knowledge of the "sweet science". I also have a great knowledge of sports and what people want to see from its "stars".
Your argument about the beauty of Floyd being a counterpuncher and a "boxer" is great. However it doesn't hold water in terms of his legacy and it shouldn't have won him that fight last night. Since you are a boxing aficionado, I would submit the following question to you. What is the rule about champions and their titles? Hasn't it always been the case that the challenger has to "do more" to take the title off the champ? Hasn't this always been a general rule in boxing? Floyd didn't do that last night.
"Sugar" Ray Leonard was a tremendous boxer but was always willing to mix it up in big fights. See his fights against Hagler and Hearns. He knew what it meant to be on a big stage and he knew what the crowd wanted to see. "Floyd" is often compared to Sugar Ray. After last night I'm not sure if any kind of comparison to Leonard holds any water. In their respective primes, Leonard was by far a superior fighter.

"No, cause it ain't sh*t. Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me? Ain't sh*t ... Next time I might shake my d*ck." --Randy Moss
[ Parent ]

I think this is all just (#3)
by RJ Warner on Mon May 07 2007 at 7:25 AM EST

setting up for a rematch sometime next year, whether Mayweather has "retired" or not. The judge who gave it to Oscar intentionally or unintentionally planted a seed of doubt in people's minds as to who won the fight, hence a huge rematch with huger hype and the hugest payday in boxing history.

And if Mayweather is considered to be one of the "greatest ever," it will be the quietest "greatest ever" well...ever.

: Rematch (#4)
by Trevor on Mon May 07 2007 at 10:01 AM EST

The money would probably be there for a rematch. It is interesting that this is the second time Oscar has lost a disputed decision as a lot of people had him winning the Trinidad fight.
What is really interesting is the Mayweather/De La Hoya fight would have been a draw if Judge Jerry Roth had given the 12th round to De La Hoya. I think most people watching the fight definitely thought De La Hoya won the 12th round. It should also be noted that Roth was the judge in the Trinidad fight against De La Hoya and scored the last three rounds of that fight in Trinidad's favor and had Trinidad winning 115-113 on the cards. I'm not saying.........I'm just saying.....maybe Roth just doesn't like De La Hoya. Because he essentially showed a hypocrisy in the two ways he scored those two fights. He rewarded Trinidad for being the aggressor those last three rounds, but didn't reward De La Hoya for being the aggressor in the last round of the Mayweather fight.

"No, cause it ain't sh*t. Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me? Ain't sh*t ... Next time I might shake my d*ck." --Randy Moss
[ Parent ]

totally disagree (#5)
by Editor on Mon May 07 2007 at 5:24 PM EST

I thought was Mayweather did was masterful. I know that the fans all wanted them to stand in the middle and throw haymakers at each other but as Herm Edwards said, "you play to win the game." Mayweather did exactly what he's known for. He was going to wear DLH out and get in a few good punches as he skipped away. There is no way that fight was a draw. That judge from NJ was either on crack or he was paid off by Golden Boy Promotions.

I gave Oscar maybe 4 rounds outside of the last round when Mayweather knew he had won as long as he didn't get knocked out. Mayweather pretty much controlled every round except a few but DLH would jump in at the 15 second mark and get a flurry of flailing punches in that looked good and had everyone thinking he won that round.

I'm not a huge fight fan but Mayweather is fucking sweet.

: This needs to be a radio show topic... (#6)
by Trevor on Mon May 07 2007 at 5:34 PM EST

....we can go on about this for hours. The viewing public got cheated. Mayweather talked all that smack and then fought a fight that didn't approach it at all. He ran from Oscar. He refused to fight him. In my opinion, Oscar should have walked out of that fight still the 154 pound champ. He was the aggressor all fight long. How many times in history has a champion lost his title in a fight that he was the aggressor in?

"No, cause it ain't sh*t. Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me? Ain't sh*t ... Next time I might shake my d*ck." --Randy Moss
[ Parent ]

With limited boxing knowledge.. (#7)
by YankTank on Tue May 08 2007 at 11:52 AM EST

...I tend to agree with Trevor. That this fight was all hyped up, stealing the cover page real estate on every sports magazine in the world. The whole chemistry of the match up resided in the fact they're both somewhat of jerks. And then throughout the whole fight it lacked all the "out of blood" desperation i was counting on!

Great piece--hard to write about something that's such big news, so i was especially impressed with how you attacked it.

Bad Intentions (#8)
by kirbygarlitos on Tue May 22 2007 at 9:52 AM EST

This comment is two weeks late but I'm actually just new here so I thought I'd give my two cents on your story.

The beef I have with your article is the way you put Jermaine Taylor on a pedestal. For the record, Jermaine Taylor has nothing on Floyd Mayweather.

You mentioned that Taylor has already fought Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright. The contention I have is that Jermaine Taylor was less impressive in those three fights than Mayweather was in his bouts with Dela Hoya, Gatti, and Corrales. Heck, I even thought that Taylor lost the second fight against B-Hop, and he likewise didn't prove that he was the best middleweight against Wright.

Even more disheartening was the way he fought his last two opponents, Ouhma and Spinks, both of whom are smaller than him. He was backing up the entire night against Ouhma, a natural 154.
Against Spinks, he was hesitant to trade punches with the guy.

If he wanted to show the world that he was indeed full of "Bad Intentions", he didn't do anything to convince everyone that he could live up to his nickname.

So let's face it, if you think Mayweather is a boring fighter, Taylor makes him look like Manny Pacquiao.

Speaking of Pacquiao, now he's a fighter who's well worth the price of admission.

Pound For Pound Champion........I Think Not | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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