If this latest claim of retirement is true, then we have seen the end of Floyd Mayweather's career. Even if it proves temporary, the number of fighters who have come back to the sport from retirement or forced absence and performed at the highest levels is small. Muhammad Ali came back after being kept out of boxing for years by the WBA (one of the very first solid proofs that the alphabet cartel is rotten all around) to fight one of the very best heavyweight title fights of all time, to enjoy a brief career as a top contender, and then to recapture the title during what many people today call heavyweight boxing's greatest era. Eder Jofre and Sugar Ray Robinson came back after 'retirements' that amounted to prolonged vacations to win championships, Jofre (the former bantamweight champion) at featherweight and Robinson at middleweight. The man Jofre beat, Vicente Saldivar, had also come back from a 'retirement' that smacked more of a vacation to win the championship. The all time, undisputed champion of comebacks, George Foreman, came back from a genuine retirement of more than a decade to win the heavyweight championship of the world. Honorable mention must go to Larry Holmes, whose own comeback included two shots at the legitimate undisputed heavyweight championship (against Tyson and Holyfield) and one shot at an alphabet belt against Oliver McCall. He lost all three fights, but put on famous showings against Holyfield and McCall.
Considering the fact that he appears to be in good shape and that he has never been in a damaging fight, Mayweather could pull a Robinson and come back in a few years to win a championship if he chooses. If one takes into account his career since defeating Carlos Baldomir for the welterweight championship of the world, however, one can quickly gather the impression that Mayweather will not be coming out of retirement unless the result is a so-called 'superfight' against a popular but overmatched opponent. Consider the last two fights of his career: Oscar De La Hoya, despite superstar status, had not won a major fight since beating Fernando Vargas and Ricky Hatton was coming up from his best weight to fight a guy who was just better than him in the first place. I think it's reasonable to question his taste for fighting the best opponents out there.
So how does Mayweather's career pan out? How do we judge his greatness when comparing his legacy with the legacy of others?
In Mayweather's favor, he retired 39-0 with 25 knockouts and he posted his win over fellow future Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya at junior middleweight, four weight classes above his original junior lightweight title win. The world or alphabet titlists he beat (Genaro Hernandez, Diego Corrales, Carlos Hernandez, Jesus Chavez, Jose Luis Castillo, DeMarcus Corley, Arturo Gatti, Sharmba Mitchell, Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir, De La Hoya, and Hatton) are admittedly a solid list and he also beat dangerous contenders like Angel Manfredy and Phillip N'dou. He won recognition by The Ring magazine as world champion at lightweight and welterweight and won alphabet titles at junior lightweight and junior welterweight. He partially unified the junior lightweight crown in a superfight against Diego Corrales. Three of his victims (Diego Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo, and Oscar De La Hoya) are deserving fellow future Hall of Famers at the time of this writing and one (Hatton) could be too. If nothing else, Mayweather is a lock for the Hall of Fame and deservedly so.
Is he truly an all time great, however? It's a much harder call. He lays claim to being the greatest fighter of all time, putting himself ahead of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Duran and other true top five or top ten pound for pound fighters. With a bit of hyperbole, one could claim that some all time greats had more fights with Hall of Famers than Mayweather had fights, period. Part of this is not Mayweather's fault. The shrinking of the talent pool and the decreased number of fights between the members of that talent pool, a result of the marginalization of American boxing (and Mayweather has never fought outside America), worked against him and his achievements must be looked at through the lens of his time.
That said, there are gaping holes in Mayweather's legacy. Some writers like to state loudly that he cleaned out the 130 pound division, but this is not so. He defended his WBC belt six times and then fought IBF 130 lb titlist (and future undisputed lightweight champion) Corrales to unify, then defended twice more. However, his last two defenses were not against the top fighters in the division. The number one and number two contenders (according to The Ring) were Acelino Freitas and Joel Casamayor, whom Mayweather never fought. Carlos Hernandez and Jesus Chavez would win alphabet titles after losing to Mayweather, but no one considers them the equals of Freitas and Casamayor. Steve Forbes, who was given the IBF title when Corrales was stripped for fighting Mayweather, never got a shot at Floyd either. Neither did Nate Campbell, who had a tremendously competitive title fight with Casamayor at 130 and more recently tamed Juan 'the Baby Bull' Diaz to win a pair of alphabet titles at lightweight. All four men were ranked 130 lb contenders when Floyd ruled that division, Freita and Casamayor the top two, and Floyd ignored them.
Mayweather fought just four times at lightweight: his original, controversial challenge to Castillo and his impressive rematch victory. Then an easy defense against unheralded, unknown, and unranked Dominican Victoriano Sosa preceded a real challenge by red-hot South African Phillip N'Dou before Floyd was at 140 beating perrennial also ran DeMarcus Corley and unknown Henry Brusseles to earn his shot at Arturo Gatti. Positioned for the superfight of superfights against Kostya Tzyzu, the best 140 lber since Aaron Pryor, what did Floyd do? He jumped to welterweight to fight Tzyzu's victims Sharmba Mitchell and Zab Judah, then fought welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir. Baldomir had put a gutsy performance in against Zab Judah to win the title, but as a champion he was more Ingemar Johannsen or Bruce Curry than he was Sugar Ray Leonard. After Baldomir, Mayweather would fight only twice more and his only welterweight title defense was against junior welterweight champion Hatton.
With his strong career at 130 and 136 lbs, Mayweather probably belongs somewhere on the very competitive list of top lightweights of all time. The list is so very competitive, however, that Mayweather might not be in the top five. His lack of meaningful fights at 140 and 148 keeps him off the list of top welterweights, in my opinion. He never fought the true champion at 140, and he never defended against a top 148 lber at 148. Never once in his career, at any weight, did he fight all comers.
Mayweather was the most capable fighter of the early 21st century, possibly the fighter of the decade. He never lost a fight and, at the end of his career, became something of a crossover star. He fought with a combination of talent and fundamentals that is no longer seen.
He was not the greatest fighter of all time.
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