FORMER WBA lightweight champion and 2015 Hall of Fame inductee Ray โBoom Boomโ Mancini has slammed Floyd Mayweather over his claims to be โThe Best Everโ. The popular Mancini – who retired in 1992 – boxed in an era alongside Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran, and believes Mayweather would have lost to each of them.
โFloyd is a special fighter but all that โTBEโ stuff? Heโs delusional,โ Mancini told Boxing News. โSugar Ray Leonard? Roberto Duran? Tommy Hearns? He wouldnโt beat any of those guys and itโs disrespectful to them. First of all fighters should just be humble, and if theyโre mentioned with the best guys of all-time, they should be honoured. You donโt turn round and say youโre โThe Best Everโ.โ
But Mancini, who fought the likes of Alexis Arguello, Jose Luis Ramirez, Bobby Chacon, and Hector Camacho, does believe that Mayweather has something that Leonard did not.
โRay Leonard is a good friend of mine and he came by and I said โThis kid [Mayweather] does a lot of things you couldnโt do.โ Ray looks at me. I say โRelax, he couldnโt have beaten you, though.โ Leonard wanted to annihilate fighters, he didnโt want people to finish on their feet but this kid [Mayweather] will just slap you round for 12 rounds. He wonโt take any chances, and thatโs the difference.โ
Mancini refused to predict what would have happened if heโd have met Mayweather in the ring but believes his busy, pressure fighting-style would have given Floyd some problems.
โFloyd is a special fighter,โ Ray repeated. โI like to think I would have done okay and Iโm a pressure fighter but I would never say I would have beaten him. In a fight you have to see what happens, and being as though itโs not going to happen, Iโm not going to say I could beat him. Iโll just say I think Iโd have done pretty good.โ
Mancini did have praise โ of sorts โ for Floydโs advisor, and increasingly influential powerbroker, Al Haymon.
โIn six months to a year weโll know if heโs the dumbest guy out there or the smartest. But heโs trying to bringing boxing back to network television, so God bless him for that.โ
The full interview with Mancini about his own career will be published in next weekโs Boxing News.