‘Floyd Mayweather does things that Sugar Ray Leonard couldn’t do’

Floyd Mayweather

FORMER WBA lightweight champion and 2015 Hall of Fame inductee Ray โ€œBoom Boomโ€ Mancini has slammed Floyd Mayweather over his claims to be โ€˜The 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.

โ€œFloyd is a special fighter but all that โ€˜TBEโ€™ stuff? Heโ€™s delusional,โ€ Mancini told Boxing News. โ€œSugar Ray Leonard? Roberto Duran? Tommy Hearns? He wouldnโ€™t beat any of those guys and itโ€™s disrespectful to them. First of all fighters should just be humble, and if theyโ€™re mentioned with the best guys of all-time, they should be honoured. You donโ€™t turn round and say youโ€™re โ€˜The 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.

โ€œRay Leonard is a good friend of mine and he came by and I said โ€˜This kid [Mayweather] does a lot of things you couldnโ€™t do.โ€™ Ray looks at me. I say โ€˜Relax, he couldnโ€™t have beaten you, though.โ€™ Leonard wanted to annihilate fighters, he didnโ€™t want people to finish on their feet but this kid [Mayweather] will just slap you round for 12 rounds. He wonโ€™t take any chances, and thatโ€™s the difference.โ€

Mancini refused to predict what would have happened if heโ€™d have met Mayweather in the ring but believes his busy, pressure fighting-style would have given Floyd some problems.

โ€œFloyd is a special fighter,โ€ Ray repeated. โ€œI like to think I would have done okay and Iโ€™m 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 itโ€™s not going to happen, Iโ€™m not going to say I could beat him. Iโ€™ll just say I think Iโ€™d have done pretty good.โ€

Mancini did have praise โ€“ of sorts โ€“ for Floydโ€™s advisor, and increasingly influential powerbroker, Al Haymon.

โ€œIn six months to a year weโ€™ll know if heโ€™s the dumbest guy out there or the smartest. But heโ€™s 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 weekโ€™s Boxing News.

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