What do you do when all you get is Mayweather follow-ups to last week’s Mayweather Mail Sack? Well, you dedicate another sack to the man grown-ass “experts” love to hate:
Why We Hate
Hi Paul,
I've emailed you before and I really do enjoy your work, but you are very wrong about why people hate Floyd.
People hate Floyd for the three basic reasons:
1.) The two fights that EVERYONE in the sport wanted to see and that would have been hugely profitable were Floyd vs. Margarito and Floyd vs. Williams. Fans believed that stylistically those were the two guys who could have given him the most problems because those guys had the reach, they threw 100+ punches a round, and Floyd didn't have the power at 147 to keep them off him. For Floyd to have won those fights he would have had to take the kind of punishment he avoided his whole career and the fans knew that's why he dodged those guys.
And fans felt cheated out of seeing Floyd really tested and they all knew it was BECAUSE FLOYD WAS ABLE TO CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE THE FIGHTS. Fans wanted a Leonard-Duran 1 kind of event and Floyd refused to give it to them. Worse, Floyd refused to give it to them with a great big smile.
If you don't understand that, then you must be too young to have been around the sport at the time.
2.) He was a great talker and he promoted every fight he ever had as a "I'm going toe to toe", "I'm gonna knock you the fuck out", kind of fight and then the reality was that he used his speed and coordination to outbox his opponents from the outside. This was especially annoying in his money phase of his career when all his fights were PPV and he virtually never knocked anyone out (or even tried) except for Hatton and the cheap shot against Ortiz. Again, the fans felt cheated out of the excitement they were promised and paid for.
3.) Floyd has a long history of beating women, which, when combined with the points above, made it very easy to believe that hating Floyd was righteous.
Floyd's haters made him rich and he definitely went out of his way to be the guy everyone hated because hate is every bit as good a reason to buy a PPV as love.
Nobody ever said that Floyd was stupid.
Like I said, I really do enjoy your column but you just happen to be very wrong about this particular subject.
Keep up the good work.
-- Anonymous
Hi Anonymous.
Whenever I write something on this topic, I get the same counterarguments and I’m well-versed in dealing with them at this point. So, let me go through each point of yours individually.
1. There’s a lot of rewritten history when people look back at the Margarito non-fight with Floyd. First, Margarito, at the time, was a fringe WBO champ. He was lauded by some “purists” for his all-action style, but he was by no means one-half of a super fight, he was not the biggest fight out there for Mayweather, and he wasn’t even the fighter that “mattered” when it came to lineage at 147. Throw in the fact that Mayweather had just bought his way out of his Top Rank contract and the split with Arum was pretty nasty. So, were we expecting him to struggle to pull away from Arum and then turn right back around and do a friendly co-promotion with him? That’s unrealistic. And, really, this whole Margarito thing was nothing but a hustle from Arum to get some push for his “Most Feared Man” promotion of Margarito while using Mayweather’s name to help get it off the ground. Arum never really pushed for the fight while Mayweather was still with Top Rank, but suddenly he was hungry to put it together when it actually couldn’t be made? Please. I recall Mayweather making a fight with Cotto—another Top Rank fighter he was “ducking”—less than two months after Cotto left Top Rank.
As for Paul Williams—NOBODY was lining up to fight Williams (except Canelo, who still got no credit for trying to make the fight). Risk vs. reward assessment is not something Mayweather invented and it’s not fair to hold him to standards others aren’t being held to. I understand how everyone would be avoiding Williams, but let’s not pretend that Mayweather not looking his way was somehow extra devious and cowardly.
2. Nobody was turned into a Mayweather hater because he failed to deliver on promised knockouts. Come on. Minds were made up long before that. People who felt cheated by his fights, simply didn’t have to buy them. If every fighter were to generate dedicated haters because they didn’t deliver on the wars they promised pre-fight, then all of boxing would be dragged to the ground by rabid critics.
3. Let’s not even go there. Read the police report on the beloved Diego Corrales and what happened to his pregnant wife. Then, get back to me about this self-righteous baloney. Boxing is full of beloved heroes who did awful things to women. This “he’s a woman beater” line is just an after-the-fact excuse for the dislike these people already felt.
Listen, I’m not suggesting that Mayweather is a saint or worthy of hero worship. All I’m saying is that he’s no worse than others who’ve come before him and who still operate today. I think most of the dedicated critics truly do believe they are hating him for competition-related goings on. But there’s something deeper there and it touches on fight fans’ deep conservatism when it comes to the sport and their romanticism when it comes to keeping things “old school.” In boxing purists’ minds, maintaining status quo is a positive because it means going back to “better” days where fighters bled and didn’t talk or frustrate with business matters. A freeman in a world of indentured servitude draws ire—especially one who has succeeded in maintaining autonomy and one who thumbs his nose at the old ways.
What Happened with McGregor?/What Will Happen with Pacquiao?
Hey Paul,
I noticed what you said about Floyd not looking great against McGregor in their fight. There has been some speculation that he wasn't able to train properly leading up to it (being that he was 40 and training camps are much more difficult at that age). There has also been some talk that he
carried Conor for several rounds to give the fans their money's worth. I'm sure you get this a lot, but how much of that do you think is true? I personally agree that he has the style to beat Pac even today, though he hasn't been active and Manny has. Either way, it should be more interesting than the last one. What's your prediction if it happens again?
Thanks, man.
-- Bob Kalbaugh
Hey Bob.
I have no insider info on this, but I think Mayweather’s poor performance against McGregor was a mixture of age, of him not taking McGregor seriously, and, yeah, of him carrying Conor for the first few rounds of the fight. Mayweather knew he could beat McGregor whenever and however he liked and half-assed his way through the fight and its lead-up.
When it comes to Mayweather-Pacquiao 2, I think the rematch will be closer than their first bout and Pacquiao will start a lot quicker. Ultimately, though, Mayweather should again nullify Pacquiao’s best weapons and win another UD—unless Floyd’s legs are entirely gone at this point.
Not TBE Promoter
Hi Paul,
I just read your piece on Mayweather bucking the old guard and that may be true of him as a fighter hit, as a promoter he does the exact same things you say other promoters do.
He recently had Saul Rodriguez fight once and it was so bad he sat out the rest of his contract then went right back to Top Rank.
Thomas Dulorme fought twice and then went to DAZN. Mickey Bey has been very critical of Mayweather and has wanted to leave.
We see Mayweather put Tank on the shelf and then suggested he would feed him to Lomachenko. He hasn’t had a payday since April and complains om a weekly basis that Floyd holds him. Hearn offered him a lucrative co-promotional deal at DAZN and Floyd turned it down. Tank only fought once this year and his talent is wasting away. The excuse that Tank got in trouble is why he isn’t fighting doesn’t work either. They didn’t have any fights in the works before he got in trouble either.
I think Floyd does buck the trend as a fighter but most fighters need a promoter to build them up just like Floyd needed one himself his first couple years. But as a promoter Floyd isn’t any different than Oscar or Arum except that he is a bit worse because he doesn’t have dates to keep his guys busy.
-- Virgil Demayo
Hi Virgil.
I have nothing supportive or positive to say about Mayweather as a promoter. Your points are valid. Mayweather Promotions has not done a great job of promoting their fighters beyond the “He’s Floyd’s guy” angle.
A kid like Gervonta Davis should be mega-active at this stage of his career, especially considering his proclivity for outside-the-ring distraction. Badou Jack has improved greatly as a fighter under the Mayweather Promotions banner, but he should be a bigger star than he is now.
I just don’t think Mayweather can get past his own ego to elevate anyone over himself.
Floyd’s “Staged” Event
Hey Paul,
I was telling anybody who would listen a month ago the Floyd was going to pull/stage some kind of stunt to get everyone interested in his Pacquiao rematch or Broner match. No one is interested in a Mayweather/Pacquiao rematch.
This was just a stunt to get everyone to believe he's a coward and pay that money down the line to see him get his comeuppance.
He was never going to fight that Japanese guy! That guy was too small. What weight would they fight at? It didn't make sense. He's trying to build the interest without McGregor.
Floyd isn't broke either, he's super rich with nothing to do. So he's going to do the only thing he knows-fight. If he was really broke he could sell his car collection and recoup $20M - $100M.
Him and Pacquiao are going to fight in May. Broner is the sacrificial lamb.
-- Robert Jackson
Hey Robert.
I tend to believe Arum’s take on the whole Japanese fight thing. Somebody probably offered him a shit ton of money to show up and do the press conference and then, maybe, they went too far in actually promising a fight that was never really set to happen. But, who knows.
And, yeah, I don’t think he’s broke, either. He is, however, someone addicted to being “Money” and he’s drawn to those moments where he can show off a monstrous paycheck. The rematch with Pacquiao may be one of those moments to grasp at relevance.
[Editor's note: According to a recent interview on TMZ, Floyd Mayweather now claims that the exhibition may be back on. Apparently, he's still talking to RIZIN about making it happen, stating, "We're gonna make it happen...It's gonna be a little boxing exhibition. No kicking...I'm moving around with the guy for 9 minutes, and of course it's gonna be the highest paid exhibition ever."]
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