Questions re: Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s Legacy

[Rantcatrat]

How about what was roy jones best win pre tarver 2?

Fortunately, roy was so talented and gifted there were no "rocky fights" or competitive fights that the masses crave for that says you havent been in a hard fight.

The same thing can be said for floyd.

Whos to say floyd wouldnt have easily outboxed roberto duran in his prime.
The better the competition the better he performs.

Absolutely. There is no way to say. That same argument though can be made about every fighter we like. For example, I might admire Ike Williams and believe he was the best lightweight to ever lace up gloves. Who's to say he wouldn't have beat Roberto Duran at lightweight?

However, when it comes to talking about the best of all-time, which is a very small group, how can we even compare Floyd Mayweather with Roberto Duran when Duran beat Sugar Ray Leonard. Does Floyd Mayweather Jr. have a win on his CV that equates to Duran's win over Sugar Ray Leonard? Does Floyd have a win that is comparable to Duran's over Jose Pipino Cuevas, or over Iran Barkley at middleweight (remember Duran started his career at lightweight, comparable to Floyd)? If we are talking about legacy, the most important questions are: who did he face and when? Otherwise, it's mere speculation, and entirely subjective. Not to say, the debate isn't fun, of course.

By the way, there are those that argue that Sugar Ray Leonard wasn't great, or that a win over Cuevas wasn't great, besides that I disagree, even if we assume that they aren't great, are there any wins on Floyd's resume that are better?

Was there an opponent available that was on Leonard's level for Mayweather to beat?

And beating Jose Luis Castillo is actually better than beating Pipino Cuevas

I'm not disagreeing with you there. It's actually my whole point. It's tough to compare Mayweather to someone like Duran when he never faced anyone on the level of the guys Duran faced. It's not his fault. It's not Wladimir Klitschko's fault either that there aren't any Ken Norton's, Sonny Liston's, George Foreman's, or Joe Frazier's.

Unfortunately, for Floyd and Wlad, the welterweight division and the heavyweight division haven't been exceptionally deep during their reigns, so they didn't get a chance to test their mettle against great fighters. The result though is that we can't rank them above the greats who we know faced other greats.

One more point is about the risks Duran took, which Floyd hasn't taken, even though Duran came out in defeat. Duran is a guy who started at lightweight and was 5'7. He's not all that different physically than Floyd, at the very least he's comparable in size. Yet, Duran fought Marvelous freaking Hagler at middleweight. He lost, but fighting Marvelous Hagler, for a guy who started at lightweight, is an unholy risk to take. It's riskier than Floyd fighting Sergio Martinez right now at middlweight. and Floyd won't even face him at junior middleweight.

On a side note, there might even be an argument that Duran's performance against Hagler is greater than any Floyd performance, simply when you take into account, the weight jump, the risk, and all that. Don't forget Duran won many rounds against Hagler.