LAS VEGAS – It’s difficult to
wrap one’s arms around the idea that an athlete who is audacious enough
to refer to himself as “The Best Ever,” in his sport may actually be
underappreciated.
But when it comes to Floyd Mayweather, that may be the case.
One of the least-appreciated
facts of Mayweather’s marvelous career, which comes to a conclusion on
Saturday against Andre Berto at the MGM Grand Garden, is that more than
half of his professional opponents were or had been world champions at
the time he fought them.
Berto, who is a former
welterweight title-holder, will become the 16th consecutive current or
former champion Mayweather will have met, and the 24th in what will be
his 49th fight.
That is a remarkable accomplishment, even if not all of those fighters were at their peak at the time Mayweather fought them.
His bout against Berto will be
his 26th world championship bout (he fought Marcos Maidana and Jose Luis
Castillo twice each), meaning 53 percent of all his bouts were for a
major world title (either the WBC, WBA, WBO or IBF world belts).
He’s held championships in five weight classes, at super
featherweight, lightweight, super lightweight, welterweight and super
welterweight.
He was 9-0 in 130-pound
championship matches. He was 4-0 in lightweight title fights, 1-0 in
super lightweight title matches, 8-0 in welterweight championship bouts
and 3-0 in super welterweight championship bouts.
The following is a more in-depth look at Mayweather’s title fight success division by division:
Super featherweight, 9-0, 6 KOs
– Mayweather was 17-0 when he challenged the highly regarded Genaro
Hernandez for his first world title on Oct. 3, 1998, eight days shy of
two years from the day he turned professional. This is the class where
he had some of his most impressive performances.
In 2001, he knocked Diego
Corrales down five times and stopped him in the 10th round in a battle
of unbeaten champions. He also scored a ninth-round stoppage of the
underrated Jesus Chavez in a card on which his future rival, Manny
Pacquiao, fought on the undercard.
Lightweight, 4-0, 1 KO
– Mayweather began to run into critics when he made the move to
lightweight in 2002 to face Jose Luis Castillo. At the time, Castillo
was widely regarded as the best lightweight in the world.
Mayweather won that April 20,
2002, bout at the MGM by unanimous decision, though not without much
controversy. Judges scored it for Mayweather by a wide margin, giving
him a win by scores of 115-111, 116-111 and 115-111.
But Castillo threw more punches
(506-448), landed more (203-157) and connected at a higher percentage
(40-35) according to CompuBox statistics. That prompted HBO’s Harold
Lederman to score the bout in favor of Castillo, as did many of HBO’s
viewers.
Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who was
then promoting Mayweather, said after the fight he felt Mayweather won,
but disagreed with the margin. Later, Arum would say he felt Castillo
had been jobbed.
Mayweather, who said he injured
his shoulder on the last day of training for the fight, gave Castillo a
rematch in December. He won that fight more convincingly.
It was the highlight of his
lightweight reign. He’d go on to defeat non-descript opponents,
Victoriano Sosa and Philip N’Dou, before moving to super lightweight.
Super lightweight, 1-0, 1 KO
– Mayweather made his pay-per-view debut in his only title fight at 140
pounds, and it was an easy one-sided victory over Arturo Gatti.
The fight was never in doubt, as Mayweather’s hands were too fast for
Gatti, who could never catch Mayweather. He won all six rounds until
Gatti trainer Buddy McGirt stopped the bout.
There were great opponents for
him at 140, notably Kostya Tszyu, but Mayweather abandoned the division
in favor of welterweight without ever defending his title.
Welterweight, 8-0, 2 KOs
– Mayweather is most closely associated with the 147-pound weight
class, where many of the sport’s greatest stars, including Sugar Ray
Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Oscar De La Hoya
competed.
Mayweather’s welterweight title
opponents had a combined record of 268-27-11, a winning percentage of
89.4 at the time he met them. This doesn’t include non-title fights in
that span in which he beat Juan Manuel Marquez, who was 50-4-1 at the
time, or Shane Mosley, who was 46-5.
He debuted in a non-title fight against ex-champion Sharmba Mitchell, and looked sharp in scoring a sixth-round knockout.After a slow start, he figured out Zab Judah and was highly impressive, perhaps the most impressive performance of his welterweight title run.
He defeated Pacquiao in the largest-grossing fight of all time, but it was a largely ho-hum fight and came long after both had passed their primes.
Mayweather bounced back and forth during this span between welterweight and super welterweight and didn’t look as good at 147 as he did at 154.
Super welterweight, 3-0, 0 KOs
– Three of his four best pay-per-views came at super welterweight, as
he defeated Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez. The three
bouts combined to sell 6.3 million on pay-per-view and helped establish
him as the No. 1 gate attraction in the sport.
He routed both Cotto and Alvarez, but took a split decision over an
aging De La Hoya. De La Hoya tired midway through the fight and let
Mayweather take over rolling down the stretch.Summary of his career – In baseball, Hall of Fame players who have been with multiple teams have to choose which team’s cap they want to display on their plaques.
If Mayweather had to make that
choice, super featherweight would probably be the way he should go. He
was as brilliant as ever defensively, but was a far more effective
offensive fighter.
He threw more and hit harder in his early days.
As he moved up in weight, he was
more economical with his punches and didn’t carry the same kind of snap
on his shots that he did earlier in his career.
It’s been a masterful career,
though not without plenty of criticism. Critics wanted to see him fight
foes like De La Hoya, Mosley, Cotto and Pacquiao earlier.
He wanted De La Hoya early on in his career, but De La Hoya was the sport’s biggest draw at the time and made Mayweather wait.
There are fierce arguments among boxing experts as to why he didn’t
fight opponents such as Mosley, Cotto, Pacquiao and others earlier.Regardless, though, there are few legitimate opponents during his nearly two decades as a pro who were available for him to fight that he didn’t fight.
He’d be remembered more kindly
by boxing historians if he’d fought some of them earlier, most notably
Pacquiao, as well as more aggressively.
But when it came to what ultimately matters – winning – he had whatever it took each time out.