Floyd Mayweather is a smart boxer and he can see what he’d be in for if Manny Pacquiao’s blazing fists were ever on target for his head – the American fears he will be brutally knocked out.
Mayweather emerged out of hiding recently and gave an interview to his new pals over at Fighthype.com. Again, Mayweather squelched the idea of him fighting Pacquiao in 2011. “If it happens, it happens. If it don’t then it don’t, you know? Life goes on,” he told interviewer Ben Thompson.
Those words are a far cry from what Floyd would say if he really felt in his heart of hearts that he could beat Pacquiao. If he really believed he could handle Pacquiao with ease, Floyd would be telling Ellerbe, “Make the f***** fight”, as he did after Ricky Hatton challenged him.
Floyd has not given any indication that he wants to fight Pacquiao for by far the biggest payday of his career. Floyd even admitted to Fighthype that he has concerns about how Pacquiao could do permanent bodily harm to his being. “It’s not about the money,” claims the man now, who once even changed his damned name to ‘Money.’ “If your health is not right, if your body’s not right, mentally or physically, you’ll never be able to spend that money. That’s why we want everybody in the sport of boxing to be fair. We want the fighters to be fair and I want all fighters to take the test, just to show the world that we have a clean sport.”
The man who said he’s the greatest fighter of all time, superior to Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Ray Leonard, claims he is different from all other fighters because he “can adapt and adjust to any style. I can make adjustments and adapt within minutes, within seconds in that squared circle.”
But Floyd apparently doesn’t believe in himself that he can find the formula to make the adjustments to deal with the relentless speed, fury, power and burning ambition that Manny Pacquiao presents.
“If it happens, then it happens. If it don’t, it don’t,” he re-stated to Thompson.
Funny, you didn’t hear Floyd talk like that when easy fights with old, faded, names like Gatti, Oscar, Hatton, Marquez or Baldomir were on the table, did you?
And you never heard great champions like Ali, Leonard, Duran, Tyson, Lewis, Holyfield, Hagler talk like that about the biggest challenges of their careers. They didn’t duck the best like the pretender Mayweather, they eagerly took on the best. Because they believed in themselves and their skills.
As he continues to sidestep Pacquiao, Mayweather is proving himself to be a fake who really does not believe in himself or his ability to compete with the best.
Mayweather, like a cowardly bully, would prefer to duck the best, and beat up on second and third raters.