By Charlie Knoxville
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has some of the most illogical and unreasonable fans in all of sports. They keep calling Manny Pacquiao a ducker, cherry picker, coward, sissy, steroid user any name you want, yet they support the biggest cherry picker in the history of boxing. I fail to understand how someone who fights to KO opponents and takes heavy punches to do so is a coward or chicken — I have never seen the Pacman run from a fight, anytime he gets dropped or hurt he fights harder until he can knock you out or he gets knocked out — that is not a coward style of fighting.
How can a brave warrior like Manny Pacquiao be a ducker or coward? It seems these Mayweather fanatics name call with irrelevant terms that do not apply to the Pacman to make their boxer look good. If someone says something negative about Mayweather they instantly retaliate with “What about Manny Pacquiao?” or take shots at his character.
I wrote an article (If Pacquiao loses to Marquez, Mayweather still won’t fight him) prior to the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 4 fight stating that if Pacquiao loses to Marquez, Floyd Mayweather still won’t have the courage to fight him because he calculates the risk reward in his mind. That is one thing you must give credit to Floyd Mayweather Jr., he is one deep thinking cherry picker, he thoroughly analyzes the possible opposition and if they have a stylistic chance of beating him. If only Floyd could apply the critical thinking he uses in picking opponents when it comes to some of his out of the ring activities maybe he wouldn’t get caught up in so much that trouble with the law in his daily life.
Floyd Mayweather is scared to lose. He prides himself in being undefeated because it’s all he has to justify his weak resume. He’s already made it clear that he doesn’t want to get hurt, and cares more about his health and self preservation than money. If you are worried about health and self preservation, I got news for you, you are in the wrong sport buddy because boxing is one of the most brutal sports. Boxing is the hurt business and just like other combative sports such as mixed martial arts and kickboxing your goal is too inflict as much bodily harm on your opponent as possible until he either quits, gets knocked out or the duration of fight is over.
I have never heard Manny Pacquiao act scary like this. The guy is not scared of any boxer in his division, in fact, if he were scared why would he fight the guy who gave him his toughest fights 4 times? To me that shows that he wants to challenge himself, he knew the fights were close and controversial so he wanted to answer it, unfortunately he got knocked out, but that is Manny Pacquiao’s motto “knock me out you win” and Marquez knocked him out and won. Floyd didn’t have the type of courage Marquez had, he let the man that many of his fanboys claim was easy work get beat by a man he already defeated. The reason he never fought Pacquiao is simple, he presents a stylistic nightmare for Floyd.
Mayweather cannot handle boxers who move well or throw punches from unpredictable angles with speed and power. He had difficulty timing a shot Miguel Cotto, whenever Cotto used some foot work and Cotto kept touching him with a left jab busting his nose. He also had a hard time against the awkward volume punching Emanuel Augustus. Mayweather looked amazing against a flat footed and slow Robert Guerrero, but even now with Pacquiao knocked out cold and past his best years, he sees him as a threat so he waits for others guys to beat him up because he hopes that as time passes by people will forget this and act like Pacquiao losing just means that he wasn’t on his level and Mayweather would have beat him anyway. The truth is that years from now people will look at Floyd Mayweather as the guy who ducked and avoided a prime Manny Pacquiao, only a small portion of his extreme fans will actually think the opposite.
Recently there has been word going around the boxing world that Floyd was only willing to fight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at 147-pounds and didn’t want to fight him at 154-pounds when both fighters hold a title belt in the light middleweight division. Floyd and his fans said that unlike Manny Pacquiao they want guys at their best weight, that is why he fought Miguel Cotto at 154 for his title and no catchweight, but when it comes to Canelo they want to drain him to 147, I wonder why Floyd doesn’t want to fight Canelo at his optimum weight? Maybe because Canelo is younger, stronger and more dangerous than a shop worn Cotto. The hypocrisy of the Mayweather fanatics is cringe worthy, they were on Manny Pacquiao’s case calling him the catchweight king or fighting drained fighters, yet they don’t even attack Floyd and give him a pass for bringing Juan Manuel Marquez up from lightweight to fight at a catchweight of 144-pounds, only for Floyd to fail to make the contracted weight. Many Floyd fans won’t even acknowledge that or try to use revisionist history to spin the truth. This is the type of logic that goes on among the Mayweather nuts, they feel Floyd is so great, yet anytime there is a threat they get mad and say “you guys are haters and just want Floyd to lose.”
I thought Floyd was the best ever, if he is the best boxer in history and nobody is on his level like his fans claim then why not fight Pacquiao, Canelo, or Sergio Martinez? Maybe because they know deep down these guys have a shot at taking his zero. I guess they just don’t want to ruin their perfect infallible image of their idol Floyd Mayweather Jr. because if he should happen to lose, they would hop off his wagon as fast as the fairweather fans hopped off Roy Jones Jr. when he got knocked out by Antonio Tarver.
I am an avid fan of boxing and video games. My first fight of memory was watching Prince Naseem Hamed destroy Kevin Kelly. I enjoy all aspects of the sport. My favorite current boxer is Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao. My favorite boxing match is Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo 1. I love watching boxing on Pay-Per-View more than being there live because you can really enjoy and watch the action from the best view.