The Kind of Thing Floyd Should Avoid
Published by Charles Jay on May 3rd, 2009 in Operation Cleanup

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Floyd Mayweather, widely regarded as the best “pound-for-pound” boxer in the sport of boxing before his self-imposed 16-month hiatus, was at a press conference last weekend to announce his return to the ring against Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather is trying to brand himself as something of a “savior” for the game, as if it needs someone to ride in on a white horse and rescue it. “Somebody has got to keep the sport up and running,” he said, “so why not me?”

That is somewhat self-absorbed. I wonder if he noticed that Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao made $20 million between them that same evening.

Among the other quotes uttered at that gathering was the following:

“The main thing in boxing is that it takes skills. We have other sports that think they are bigger and better than us, but we make the most money. In other sports, you can come off of the street and be the best. In boxing you must dedicate yourself.”

Of course that is a slap at mixed martial arts, and Floyd has reportedly flirted with the idea of participating in the UFC before, which was a remote possibility then and is even more remote now.

I also said then, as I say now, that when Floyd engages in that kind of positioning, he is doing his own sport a disservice. It doesn’t need the favor. There may be a great truth to the notion that the popularity of mixed martial arts has impacted boxing, and as I have pointed out before and don’t really need to rehash in detail again, which each passing year MMA will be getting those “new” fans for whom it won’t even be a choice between that and boxing, as it might have been for some (in terms of where to spend that pay-per-view dollar) in recent years.

Aside from that, I don’t think it makes boxing people look very good to make disparaging comments about the “skill level” of their own, vis-a-vis the mixed martial arts competitor. It makes them look bad and it makes them look ignorant. Jim Lampley of HBO made this mistake after the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight, when he talked about the skill of boxers being “light years” ahead of anything you’ll see in mixed martial arts (Lampley showed a little less naivete in later interviews).

There are obviously very skilled participants in both sports, although I will say that as far as the “unskilled” are concerned, I’ve seen a lot more of that type in televised boxing action than I have in MMA, and that has been one place where they’ve gotten the edge – because there are not as many obvious mismatches on paper that actually play themselves out on the “field of play.”

I don’t think it ascribes any greater “skill” to a competitor because he can only use his hands, any more than it gives him greater “skill” because he can use virtually everything. I just know that successfully executing a leglock or an armbar or a guillotine or a guard of any kind, and conversely to avoid or reverse any of those things, takes a certain kind of expertise as well, especially if you are opposing someone who has his own particular set of skills that are different than yours, which is so often the case in mixed martial arts. If you are in an environment where you must be familiar with multiple disciplines, that requires a special kind of skill in and of itself.

One of the reasons I enjoy mixed martial arts is that even though I am involved in it, I frankly don’t know a whole lot about it from a technical standpoint. That gives me a certain kind of freedom to enjoy it as a novice observer, in the same way I enjoy something like, say, horse racing. It is not something that has been de-mystified for me, as boxing has. That’s a healthy thing. So I can watch with a certain wonder when a competitor demonstrates a wrestling move, for example, and even though on the surface there is a simplicity to it there is also something very complicated about the dynamic of pulling it off against a foe who may know exactly what is coming.

It’s far from a “bar fight” with “non-athletes” as Lampley has also described it previously. And I’ve got further news for him, from someone who has actually spent years in the “hands-only” business – these guys are improving their boxing skills all the time, They’re throwing jabs better, they’re putting combinations together better, they’re learning how to take a punch better. I’m almost willing to bet that we’ll see cross-over competitors alright, but they may just be mixed martial artists who could make a mark of some kind in the sport of professional boxing.

I wonder what Floyd would say then.