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on Boxing
by Bill
Gray
Is Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Ready for Manny Pacquiao?
When Sugar Ray Robinson began his comeback, he was age 33. Robinson had already fought 137 times and when he returned he showed little of his old skill. He fought like a washed up fighter but the difference between Robinson and just about any former champion who comes back is that Robinson still had a burning need to excel, to matter and to be a champion. Like many ex-champions, Robinson also needed money and while he looked bad in his first few comeback fights he was not convinced that he was finished and he kept going until he regained some of his old ability.
Robinson’s comeback began on January 5, 1955 with a six round knockout of Joe Rindone. Although it was a classic Robinson knockout; a quick left hook and right cross to the jaw, Robinson had been disappointed in his performance until he connected for the knockout. He said, ‘I couldn’t put any punches together and my timing was off.’ Still, once the fight ended, Robinson was elated. He ignored his lackluster effort and focused only on his sudden knockout; the eighty-eighth knockout of his career. Robinson thought, ‘I still got it!’
After stopping Rindone, Robinson took a fight with Ralph 'Tiger' Jones, a journeyman with a record of 31-12-3 and the loser of five straight fights. Jones outworked Robinson. He bloodied Robinson's nose in the first round and cut him in the second. Robinson landed what he thought was a good left hook in the second, but it didn't bother Jones. After six rounds, Robinson had lost every round. He needed a knockout to win and he couldn't do it. Again, Robinson's timing was off and Jones hit him hard many times. At the end of the ten round bout it was clear that Jones had won. To make it worse, the fight was on television and Robinson's fans were shocked at his deterioration. He didn't win a round and he received a flood of criticism for his poor showing.
Robinson exploded angrily when George Gainford, who’d worked with Robinson since he was an amateur, tried to shock Robinson into retirement by telling Robinson that he would no longer work with him, ‘for his own good.’
At this moment the Floyd Mayweather Jr. - Manny Pacquiao fight set for next March appears to be off. Mayweather is still in training but Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has indicated that Pacquiao’s next fight might be against Paulie Malignanni; a match with all the appeal of a pre season football game. Things fell apart shortly after the fight was announced when Mayweather’s camp floated the possibility that Pacquiao could be using performance enhancing drugs, pointing out that in past bouts Pacquiao refused to submit to a blood test less than 30 days before a bout. This caused uproar and Pacquiao allowed himself to be maneuvered into a defensive when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife position when he met the allegation with silence and then attempted to explain his objection to blood testing. Others, including Oscar De La Hoya, jumped on and ridiculed Pacquiao for his possible fear of hypodermic needles to the more damaging accusation of using a performance enhancing substance. Pacquiao took umbrage with Mayweather and he sued Mayweather and company for defamation. In a matter of days the biggest fight in years was off and Malignanni was tapped to be Pacman’s next meal. I have no idea if Pacquiao is using anything illegal but I’m puzzled by Mayweather’s timing and motive and troubled by Mayweather’s fitness to fight the battle hardened and dangerous Pacquiao so soon after a long layoff.
If Mayweather is simply trying to get under Pacquiao’s skin, why play the juicing card so soon? It seems to me that from a typical pre-fight head messing standpoint, it would make better sense for Mayweather to drop this kind of a bomb a week or so before the fight, rather than days after the fight was announced. Calling Pacquiao out so quickly makes me question if Mayweather is starting to think that he could use a few more fights before he meets Pacquiao. I believe that Mayweather’s gambit was a clever ploy intended to put Pacquiao and company on the defensive and give Mayweather an opportunity to delay and get himself into better condition.
Mayweather ended a 21 month layoff in September and he looked good in handling Juan Manuel Marquez; a fighter who’d given Manny Pacquiao two very hard fights. Their first was a draw in 2004 and the second was a split decision win for Pacquiao in 2008. While Pacquiao got away with a win and a draw, I felt that Marquez had the edge in both fights. Matching Mayweather with the aging and smaller Marquez was a deliberate decision made to provide a common opponent for a fight with Pacquiao. Mayweather basked in the afterglow of his impressive return to boxing but after Pacquiao tore up Miguel Cotto in November, Mayweather suddenly dropped the juice bomb on Pacquiao after their fight looked to be a go.
I don’t blame Mayweather if he is harboring doubt and trying to buy more time before he meets Pacquiao in the ring. While Mayweather had no difficulty defeating Pacquiao’s toughest opponent, history has demonstrated that even the great boxers can’t come back after several years off and fight at a championship level right away. I’m not suggesting that Pacquiao will blow away Mayweather as he did to De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Cotto, but Pacquiao is certainly on a roll and probably at his peak. Put simply, Manny Pacquiao is a conditioned and battle hardened boxer and Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not. While greats like Jim Jeffries, Jack Dempsey, Benny Leonard, Joe Louis, Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones, Jr. tried and failed to return to glory, there are exceptions.
The excerpt that led off this piece was from my book Boxing’s Top 100 - The Greatest Champions of All Time which John Benson and I published in 2006 and can be purchased right here at JohnBenson.com. For that book I created an objective record based database to analyze and rank 700 champions dating from John L. Sullivan in 1882 up to 2000. My system ranked Ray Robinson as the number one fighter of all time and over the past couple of years I’ve continued to tweak my database and add fighters who have become champions in the twenty first century. At the moment I have Floyd Mayweather, Jr. ranked number 26 all time, while Manny Pacquiao is at number 56 - one spot below Harry Greb and one spot above Oscar De La Hoya.
While Mayweather is a rare talent, I don’t put him in the class of Ray Robinson, and Robinson had a very rough time getting back into the swing of things. Robinson’s first five opponents in his comeback had collectively lost 74 fights but each of them presented problems for Robinson. It took him five bouts and a shocking loss to Jones before he was ready to meet a ranked fighter in Rocky Castellani, who stood between Robinson and a December 1955 middleweight title shot at the champion, Carl ‘Bobo’ Olson.
Castellani (63-8) had Robinson on the floor in the sixth round and he stunned Robinson several times but Robinson managed to do enough to win a ten round split decision and secure a shot at Olson, whom he knocked out in four rounds. After a two and a half year layoff, the greatest boxer of all time returned to the ring at age 34 and while he initially struggled against weak opposition, he began to get his game back in order. By the time Robinson met Castellani he’d recovered some of the unique rhythm, speed and confidence that made him great. It took the greatest fighter of all time one year and six fights to get back to a semblance of what he had been, and he went on to add to his legend by winning the middleweight title for the third time. Mayweather is attempting to do what Robinson did but in just his second fight on the comeback trail. What’s troubling is that Mayweather, in opposing Pacquiao, is dealing with a much tougher fighter than Robinson faced in his comeback.
My point is that there have been more failures than successes in comebacks by great fighters. Mayweather is making a big mistake in meeting Pacquiao so early in his comeback. Over his career Mayweather has met some very good fighters, but he’s never seen anyone with Pacquiao’s power, aggressiveness and quickness. Could the pre layoff Mayweather handle today’s version of Pacquiao? I think so, but I doubt that he can pull it off if they fight in March.
While Robinson succeeded, don’t forget that Muhammad Ali came back at age 29 after a three year layoff. He faced a ranked fighter in Jerry Quarry in October 1970. Ali won quickly because Quarry sustained a deep cut above his eye in the third round. The ring physician would not allow the fight to continue, so Ali's comeback lasted all of nine minutes. He looked pretty good for nine minutes. Ali appeared to be fit and he danced around the ring as if he’d never left it. Quarry came straight at Ali and Ali had little difficulty hitting Quarry with a left jab and he was able to tie him up when Quarry worked in close. But, like Robinson in 1955, Ali’s timing was off and he missed on his combinations. After the most dramatic return to the ring ever and a victory over a ranked heavyweight, the general opinion was that despite his three year layoff, the remarkable Ali was as good as ever. He was not.
Ali’s next bout was in December 1970 against Oscar Bonavena, a fighter slower than Quarry. Bonavena was a ranked heavyweight who was chosen because he’d given Joe Frazier two tough bouts. Bonavena was made to order for Ali. He was a durable, awkward and immobile block of man who could absorb punches and keep coming. Ali hoped to cut up Bonavena and stop him and then he could brag about how he stopped a man that had twice floored and gone the distance with Joe Frazier. Bonavena had thudding power but it was easy to avoid his punches because it took so long for Bonavena's looping blows to arrive. After his brief but impressive work against Quarry, Ali was shockingly awful against Bonavena but he gutted it out and stopped an exhausted Bonavena by dropping him three times in the fifteenth round. Ali tired very early in the bout and he looked slow and poorly balanced all night. His timing was terrible and he had no snap on his punches. Ali took a surprising amount of punishment from Bonavena and after the bout questions came about Ali’s conditioning and his ability to deal with heavyweight champion Joe Frazier. After so long away, two comeback fights were not enough to get Ali into the kind of condition necessary to fight Frazier. Ali had to doubt what he had left as a fighter but he could not risk a loss in another tune up bout so he ignored those who urged him to fight a few more easy opponents and he signed to meet Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title in March 1971.
Ali trained hard and sparred many rounds but his legs were not strong enough. He danced but only in spurts and too often Ali found himself trapped on the ropes where he was forced to stand and trade with Frazier, which was Frazier’s strength. Frazier pounded and punished Ali and had him reeling in the eleventh round and on the floor in the fifteenth. Frazier won a lopsided decision and Ali’s championship days and career appeared to be over. The Ring’s Nat Fleischer wrote Ali off as a flash in the pan and refused to rank him as one of his all time great heavyweights, citing Ali’s decisive loss to Frazier as evidence that Ali was all smoke and mirrors in the 1960s.
It took Ali over three years and thirteen bouts before he got another shot at the heavyweight title. In this period Ali’s conditioning and timing improved and at age 32, Ali regained the heavyweight title in 1974 by knocking out George Foreman in the eighth round. By then, Nat Fleischer was in his grave.
Ali and Robinson offer proof that there are no shortcuts in boxing; especially for fighters in their thirties. Note than when Ali came back against Quarry, he was three years younger than Mayweather is now.
At this juncture Mayweather would be wise to have a few more fights before he steps into the ring with the relentless Manny Pacquiao. This is a fight that must happen and it will happen, but let’s not be impatient. More than anything this should be a great fight between two great fighters. Right now only Pacquiao is a great fighter. Given enough work Mayweather can get everything back. If he does we’ll have the rare opportunity to enjoy watching two great fighters go at it for big money and the glory of holding the title of best fighter in the world.
If the smoke clears and they actually do fight in March, I think Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be in for as rough a night as Muhammad Ali was on another March night, 39 years ago.
COMMENTS: Bill@Bluelightningpress.com
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