Is Floyd Mayweather Jr. a better boxer than Muhammad Ali?
I don’t know. Was the velociraptor a better dinosaur than the T. rex? Could Michael Jordan beat LeBron James in one-on-one hopscotch if they were both in their prime?
The Mayweather-Ali debate is an unproductive, apples-to-oranges argument about two fighters from different weight classes and generations. Who the “better” fighter is can never be definitively parsed for numerous reasons, but that doesn’t stop people from bringing it up, particularly if it helps hate-per-view sales.
Thus we have Mayweather going off on another self-aggrandizing tear with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
SportsGrid.com’s Jake O’Donnell posted video of the conversation. The First Take personality set Mayweather up with a meatball follow-up question about whether he truly believes he’s a greater boxer than Ali.
Mayweather obliged, saying he’s a better boxer than Ali, who lost to a young professional in Leon Spinks and relied on gimmickry for one of his biggest wins.
No one can ever brainwash me to make me believe that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali was better than me. No one could ever brainwash me and tell me that. But one thing I will do, I’m going to take my hat off to them and respect those guys because are the guys that paved the way for me to be where I’m at today. ...
Leon Spinks only had seven fights. Never put a fighter in there with Floyd Mayweather with seven fights. Take punishments and let a man tire yourself out from beating you? You hit him with a few punches and go down and quit and you want to be glorified for that?
Well then.
There are a number of omissions and problems with Mayweather’s remarks here, including the fact that Leon Spinks was a 24-year-old Olympic gold medal winner 12 years Ali’s junior when they first fought. Also, Ali’s rope-a-dope against George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle" isn’t much different than Mayweather electing to use a calculated, defensive style of boxing in his bouts.
Mayweather also doesn’t note the fact that Ali fought in boxing’s golden age, before the popular rise of televised football and basketball. The talent pool was huge, as was the demand for fights. Nowadays, the general public is content to chew on one big match a year, most watching out of sheer schadenfreude in lieu of fandom.
But any rebuttal to Mayweather’s claim is useless, because, as stated, arguing for Ali is arguing for another class of fighter. If anything is up for debate between the two, it’s the question of which is the better hype man.
Dan is on Twitter. Floyd vs. Ali in a ticket-selling competition is the ultimate battle.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1aLybVo
via IFTTT April 20, 2015 at 10:00AM
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