Al Bernstein On Boxing: Mayweather-Williams Has A Nice Ring To It

ByAl Bernstein

Since negotiations fell through for a fight with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Manny Pacquiao has moved on to find another fight—and a good one. He will follow up his win over Miguel Cotto with a match against one of the six best welterweights in the world—Joshua Clottey. Now it’s Floyd Mayweather’s turn to choose an opponent.

With Floyd, Manny and Clottey accounted for, the rest of the top six (in my opinion) are Shane Mosley, Andre Berto and Paul Williams. Since he fights at other bigger weights some might think it’s a stretch to even list Williams as a welterweight, but he has held that title and says he can easily get down to 147. And, he has made a public statement that he is more than interested in fighting Mayweather on March 13 or another date.

Given all that information, I suggest to you that the sport of boxing would be well served if we had the Berto-Mosley fight on Jan,. 30, the Pacquiao-Clottey fight on March 13, and then the Mayweather-Williams fight on another date. And, even if Golden Boy Promotions wants to battle with Top Rank and put the Williams-Mayweather fight on March 13, that‘s still better than having Floyd fight some junior welterweight coming up—especially if that is Paullie Malignaggi or Nate Campbell.

The Mayweather-Williams match should be easy to make because Al Haymon is the advisor to both fighters and Williams’ promoter Goossen-Tutor Promotions has indicated a great desire to make the fight. So, why not? HBO would be thrilled with the prospect of this fight as a pay per view attraction and boxing fans everywhere would be interested.

Add to that the fact that Williams looked vulnerable in his last fight against junior middleweight Sergio Martinez, and it should be an alluring fight for Mayweather. Williams has been thought of as “tough and dangerous” to fight as a welterweight, but, he is not invincible. He has lost twice at 147, once against Carlos Quintana (though to be fair, Williams came back to knock him out in the rematch). If Quintana fought Floyd Mayweather tomorrow, I think we know who the favorite would be.

This fight can be sold to the boxing public and it would, along with the Pacquaio-Clottey fight, make boxing fans feel less disappointed about the failure to make the Pacquiao-Mayweather match. I see no down side to this. Williams is an action fighter who is thought of as one of the best pound for pound fighters in the game, and he can fight at 147. Where’s the rub?

I can’t understand why Williams’ name wasn’t the first suggested by Golden Boy Promotions as a possible opponent for Floyd. This is the fight boxing needs and the one that makes the most sense. Then you will have three winners from these three big welterweight fights, and any combination of the winners would make sense for boxing fans. The money for fights featuring winners and even loser from these fights will be bigger if all three of these matches take place.

I’d love to hear an explanation from someone why this fight can’t be made, or why it should not be made. It makes sense from a business standpoint and it will help the sport of boxing. What more need be said?