I can fully understand why Golovkin didnât take it on.
Iâm just making the point there is this narrative about that people like to throw at Mayweather that he ducked fights. You look at his record - guys like De La Hoya, Marquez, Pacquiao, Cotto, Canelo, Hatton, Mosley, Corrales, Castillo. Big, big names. You look at the best fighters all the way up from 128 -154 thereâs very few of the best in those weight divisions he didnât fight.
On the other hand you have Golovkin, a guy who is portrayed as a warrior who would fight anyone yet he was a one weight champ who stayed in an ordinary division and cleared it out when he had massive challenges in what was a pretty good super middleweight division at the time.
Mayweather was getting lots of grief for not fighting Golovkin while Golovkin was getting next to none for not fighting Ward. Ward-Golovkin made far more sense than Golovkin-Mayweather. I think Mayweatherâs ideal weight would probably have been at lightweight but he spent most of it at welter where the bigger fights were.
2 good posts there. Re: GGGâs record, Jacobs and LeMieux were both very good fighters and I see no obligation on GGG to get beaten up by Andre Ward. I also see no obligation on Mayweather to get beaten up by GGG or Martinez.
GGG is white, Mayweather is black and not an Uncle Tom. They were calling GGG an American hero FFS.
(Great fighter though)
Edit: agree that he beat Alvarez fairly well the first time.
Ward ended his career a 175lb fighter. GGG is a career middleweight. Donât remember any major clamour for GGG to fight him.
GGG cleared the mw division out like a champ should. He beat Alvarez twice in my opinion. He was the main man at 160.
Ward was an elite fighter but lets not over eulogise him. He was a light punching technician who knew how to control the ring and spoil and steal rounds. He got a gift decision against Kov on the first fight. Most obejective observers saw him losing that by at least a couple of rds.
Floyd was the best of his era. He did duck Pacman though when he was on that ridiculous tear post Hatton and during the Clottey, Margarito beatdown period. Floyd and his father were on radio shows and call ins saying Pac was a juiced up cheater etc etc. Not denying Floyd was the best but itâs revisionist history to say he didnât duck Pac at that time.
Do you have to bring race into everything, does it make you feel good or something? Mayweather is celebrated as an all time great and I think was the highest paid athlete in the world for 3/4 years in a row. Youâre knowledge of boxing seems rudimentry at best.
Wouldnât be sure about that, Kovalev basically didnât/ couldnât do anything after the early knockdown. I remember analystâs being split afterwards.
The rest of your post is accurate enough except that when the Mayweathers said that Pac was juicing they were almost certainly right and Pac refused to fight Mayweather because he didnât want to have to give a blood sample.
As regards race I just say what I see. I remember before the McGregor fight talking to a few friends who should have known better saying that Mayweather might throw the fight in exchange for a share in the UFC from Dana White. Would you say that about Marciano? I remember thinking that this guy has won 49 fights against the best god only fucking knows what heâs been through, probably what he goes through every day, and youâre talking about him throwing a fight for money. You have to ask serious questions about how peopleâs recognition for Mayweatherâs heroism / warrior spirit was so low. Empathy was rock bottom. When I say âempathyâ I donât mean that people have to like him remotely of course, just that there was no understanding whatsoever of his character. People honestly believed their prejudices of a cowardly black villain. I take no pleasure in this.
Your race point is nonsense. The discussion arose with a comparison to another black fighter, Hearns. Anyone drawing unfavorable comparisons has compared him to other black fighters as far as I can see. I didnât see anyone compare him unfavourably to a white fighter.
You have unfavourably compared him with Golovkin in the past.
Iâve made my points about Golovkin here already, a one weight world champion who cleaned out a fairly ordinary division but never stepped to what was a very competitive super middle division.
That you thought Mayweather had bigger questions to answer by not stepping up to 160 (he started off at 128) than Golovkin had of not stepping up from 160 (where he spent pretty much his whole boxing career) to 168 to fight Ward says it all.
Re Ortiz, theyâd kill to have a Latin prospect like him at welter at the minute. Should have looked after him better and provided a better environment.
Itâs the old one about the match being the same whether itâs over a yoke of petrol or a yoke of water.
Ortiz was a natural fighter, vould crack with both hands, good looking lad, charismatic. They let him fuck it up, they shouldve been on top of him like they are Ryan Garcia now. If theyâd handled him right, it would have been Floyd needing to fight Ortiz.
Can we all just agree that thereâs something unlikeable about Mayweather, and move on.
Heâs like the kind of neighbour would pull a stroke over a gatepost.
He didnât have the easiest of upbringings and obviously the thing about him attacking women are horrendous but when you compare the flak he gets with someone like Tyson then thereâs a big difference.