Just had the misfortune of reading another idiotic, revisionist history article in regards to Floyd on the main page.
Lets get this out of the way: I have no problem with people saying Floyd ducked Pac. It was a fucked up situation and the biggest fight of the century didn't happen. Whether you believe it was Floyds fault, Pacs fault, or (like me) a combination of the two egos, whatever. That's your right.
But to suggest that Floyd's spent his whole career ducking and dodging everyone with a pulse? That's just idiocy. Complete idiocy.
People forget that before Floyd became Money May and a PPV star who could call his own shots, he was one of boxing's most avoided fighters himself. Why? Because he was a mega-talented fighter who couldn't draw flies to shit. Floyd represented the worst ratio of risk/reward in the boxing for quite some time. So to write an article where you suggest that all the guys Floyd never fought in the last 15 years was because he was ducking them? Yeeeesh.
Here's a nice compilation of Floyd calling out guys since 2000.
He calls out...
-Prince Naseem (Larry Merchant laughs and alludes to the fact that Naseem is and will duck Floyd)
-Casamayor
-Frietas
-Paul Spadafora
-JLC (who he did fight twice)
-Kostya Tyszu (before he lost to Hatton)
-Shane Mosley
-De La Hoya
I'm sure someone will respond "yeah talk is cheap he never had any intention of fighting those guys." Ok, draw upon your knowledge of boxing history: has anyone ever publicly called out a guy that they wanted nothing to do with? NEVER. They either don't mention the person at all as to not draw attention to them, make excuses as to why they can't fight them, or make very non-commital statements like "we'll see how it goes" or "it's up to my promoter". Nobody ever calls out a guy by name that they want to avoid, that's just lunacy.
People talk about Mosley/Mayweather like Mayweather ducked and dodged Mosley for years and waited until he was old and senile to take the fight... what nonsense! Shane was the one ducking and dodging and making excuses about his tooth hurting and having vacations planned.
And here's Mayweather again talking about a potential Mosley fight in 2006, right after Mosley's win over Vargas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/sp...6&gwt=pay&_r=0
Even with the rumblings about Mayweather/Mosley when Mosley was at LW back in 99, Mosley chose to ignore Mayweather and leap to 147 for the big payday against Oscar instead.
People say the same thing about Mayweather and De la Hoya, that Floyd was picking on an old, decrepit De La Hoya... again, more revisionist nonsense.
Check this article out.
BOXING - Father and Son Trade Jabs in Buildup for Fight - NYTimes.com
Mayweather and Bob Arum were trying to set up a fight with DLH back in APRIL 2003. Floyd was willing to jump up from 135 to 154 to fight Oscar. Does that sound like a coward or a duck to you? He was willing to leap frog 140 and 147 and go directly to 154 to fight Oscar. And this wasn't old Oscar who got eaten alive by Pac. This was top 5 p4p Oscar. This was world champion Oscar, the guy who had only lost two close, controversial decisions to Trinidad and Mosley.
So why didn't this happen? Did Mayweather come to his senses and duck out? No, Oscar turned it down because he decided he had nothing to gain by fighting Mayweather.
SPORTS BRIEFING - BOXING - Mayweather's Opponent Is Rejected - NYTimes.com
^This one shows Mayweather tried to set up a match with Spadafora, but Spadafora was rejected by the commision due to him shooting his wife. Figure I'd throw that in there because there are people who actually think Floyd ducked Spadafora.
So knock it off with the revisionist history. If you want to run around saying Mayweather ducked Pac, be my guest. But don't say shit like PBF ducked his way to where he is now, because you have no clue what you're talking about.
Bookmarks