19.02.06 – By Joe LaFlamme: I remember years ago watching the one man shows of Roy Jones Jr. on HBO where he would defeat weaker and under skilled fighters to the point where you would feel embarrassed for his opponents. The arrogance he displayed during the fights by showboating and after the fights, when doing commentary, would annoy me so much that I would pray for the day when a fighter would take him out. Well, my prayers were answered and then some when he was starched by Tarver and Johnson in consecutive fights. Now, Roy Jones, the man who by many was once considered potentially to be the greatest fighter of all time, is gone and forgotten. In fact, I even feel sorry for him a little because there is practically no interest in him anymore and his legacy is a mere portion of what it was once thought to be.
Now, another Roy Jones has shown up by the name of Floyd Mayweather Jr. No doubt, he’s as talented and great a fighter as Roy Jones Jr. was, but he also appears to be overrated, arrogant, and extremely annoying, in my opinion.
A fighter who appears to prefer fighting weaker opponents, based on my view of things, perhaps so he can look good, while seemingly avoiding the ones he should be fighting. To be honest, I see him as a poster child for HBO boxing, who instead of getting criticized by the commentators for not fighting the top fighters (as a pound for pound number one boxer should) is only praised for his excellence. A guy who verbally disrespects other fighters so shamelessly, that you wish another Antonio Tarver in the form of a welterweight would show up to take care of business – a man just like Roy Jones Jr. from years ago.
If you actually think Mayweather isn’t dodging the best fighters then he has fooled you, like he has so many have others. I just saw him speak on ESPN, where he stated the he looks to fight only the top fighters and then moves down the line until he finds someone willing to fight him. If that was true, his next fight would be against Antonio Margarito instead of Zab Judah. Not only that, his last four opponents wouldn’t have been Sharmba Mitchell, Arturo Gatti, Henry Bruseles, and DeMarcus Corley. No disrespect to those men but they certainly are far from the best fighters in the world. Even after the Judah fight, (assuming he wins) I doubt Mayweather will fight Margarito. Even though many fans, including myself, feel Margarito is the top welterweight and the man Mayweather should be fighting, he still won’t fight him. He’ll probably say something like, “I offered the fight to Margarito but he wanted too much money,” and then go on to fight some B-level fighter in his next match, like he usually does where he will get a lot of praise for his performance and brag about how good he is. Wow, sounds like just like Roy Jones when he wouldn’t fight Bernard Hopkins years ago, among others because he felt Hopkins wanted too much money. So, instead, Roy went on to fight Clinton Woods, who was completely unknown at the time.
Where does Floyd get the nerve to think he is really worth that much? Boxing is a sport where your pay is based on your popularity and the number of seats you fill and not necessarily your skill level. Take, for example, Hopkins vs. De La Hoya. Hopkins was a strong favorite and pound for pound #1 going into the fight with De La Hoya, yet he received only a reported 4 million dollars, while De La Hoya got something in the neighborhood of 12 million. Floyd is not a fan favorite by any means. In his last fight, he couldn’t even fill half of the arena. So again, I ask, why does he feel like he can get so much more money than his opponents? Simple, that’s probably a ploy used to avoid fighting the best fighters. A person with the amount of pride and arrogance, like Floyd, is obviously not going to admit that he is ducking anyone but instead will claim he is worth so much that he can use that excuse for any fighter and get away with it. Then after outbidding himself from any fighter that is a threat, he goes on to fight B level fighters or the lame mandatory that often arises. And from this all, we get are one-sided shows where Mayweather can boast about how good he is and get a positive spin put on it by commentators at HBO. I think that is the pattern you can expect to see for a long time, just like you did with Roy Jones Jr. I, for one, am not looking forward to it. I thought that a mainstream fighter as annoying and arrogant as Roy Jones Jr., that ducks fighters would only show up once in a lifetime, unfortunately I’m wrong,
In conclusion, Mayweather is the second coming of Roy Jones. Great speed and skills, yet overrated, extremely arrogant, and untested. A man that will do whatever he can, in my opinion, to avoid a threat in his career so that his ride at the top will last as long as possible. Hey, Roy Jones got away with it for over a decade. He even was able to put heavyweight champion in the history books, not by beating Lennox Lewis but John Ruiz. So, I say to all the boxing fans out there, get ready for another era of a Roy Jones Jr. Look for one sided shows where Mayweather will outbox and destroy lesser opponents and then talk about how good he is. I also say to cops, who box professionally as a hobby, that a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. is probably not out of the question for you. After all, even when Roy Jones Jr. was pound for pound the best a cop managed to find his way into the ring with him.