By Lorne Scoggins, Examiner.comI recently had the pleasure of talking with Jeff Mayweather about his nephew, Floyd Jr, Manny Pacquiao, and more. Jeff expressed why he has doubts that the mega-fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather will ever come to fruition.
LS: The biggest buzz in boxing right now is the possibility of a matchup between Floyd Jr and Pacquiao. Do you feel optimistic that the fight will take place?
JM: Nope. I'm very pessimistic.LS: You're very pessimistic?
You know, [Pacquiao] said, 'Ok. Every pound you're over, that's going to cost you 10 million dollars'. Floyd said, 'Ok'. Then he said, 'I want to wear these kind of gloves'. Floyd said, 'Ok'.
[Floyd said], 'Now, I want you to take the drug tests, random drug testing.' See, Manny's still trying to get around that whole issue. Recently, now he's trying to say, 'Ok. Well, I'll do it up until 14 days'. But that's not random then, because you know when they're going to stop testing you. Random is actually...that's what the word "random" means--that they can test you at any point, at any given time.
LS: I understand that with Floyd and Shane Mosley, they stopped testing at 18 and 19 days, but they didn't know when they were going to stop. As far as they knew, they might have still tested them at any time, right?
JM: Right. I mean, don't get me wrong. That's important, I think. Actually, I think that's a very, very important stand to take in boxing, with the state of boxing now and so many fighters using these performance enhancing drugs. This is boxing. It's already bad enough.
You know, I'm not saying that Pacquiao's using them, but if he's not using them, he should have no problem at all taking the tests. To be honest, this is my logic, and I think this is the logic of almost every person that's sane; If I haven't done anything, I'm going to be bold to prove myself.
This is the example that I always use: I've never drank alcohol in my life. Of course, I can be driving my car and be very sleepy, but being sleepy and being drunk are two different things. Since I know for a fact that I've never drank alcohol, I'm going to be bold about being tested. I'm going to be like, 'Hey, you can test me any way you want to'. There's no chance that I'm not going to pass.
LS: Right. I see your point.
JM: And that's what you do when you don't have nothing to hide. When you have something to hide, you create so many different diversions, so many different smokescreens. The strength trainer, he wants to be the fall-guy, in case anything happens. He comes out and says, 'Well, Manny doesn't know what I give him'. Well, I don't think anybody's going to just take something, and not know what it is, and not going to ask. That was the first excuse. Then the next excuse was, 'Oh. I'm afraid of needles'. You're afraid of needles, but you have tattoos everywhere.
LS: I think Pacquiao actually came out and said that he feels like it weakens him. He said that before the Morales fight, the last fight that he lost, they took blood from him on the day of the fight. He feels that it weakened him, and that's the reason that he lost.
JM: Well, it seems to me that it's just another excuse. If they did the same thing to Erik Morales, the playing field was even. That's all Floyd's trying to do. He's trying to make the playing field even. I mean, you have a guy that started at 106 pounds, got knocked out at 106 pounds (Note: Pacquiao was knocked out at 113, and 110 pounds), moved up 41 pounds, and until the Clottey fight, had a 100% knockout ratio. That's never happened before in boxing. Never.
I mean, can you imagine Michael Carbajal, who was 112 pounds, can you imagine him beating Ray Leonard, Donald Curry, Lloyd Honeyghan, Tommy Hearns, you know, guys on this level? These are questions that, when you ask someone who knows about boxing, and has been around long enough to see Michael Carbajal, and the other names that I put out there, the first thing he's going to say is, 'No. He has no chance'.
Well if he don't have a chance, how does Pacquiao have a chance? He came from a smaller weight class, and he's not just beating guys, he's knocking them out.
JM: When [Pacquiao] went to 130, his knockout ratio was 50%. How all of the sudden did he move 17 pounds north of that and his knockout percentage was 100%, like I said, until the Clottey fight?
Like I said, can you conceive of Michael Carbajal beating Donald Curry? Most people are going to say you're out of your mind. Well, Manny Pacquiao beating De La Hoya is the exact same thing. It's no different.
LS: Well, I just hope that somehow Floyd and Manny can work everything out, and that the fight can happen. It's such an exciting possibility. Since Floyd came back from his layoff, he totally dominated Marquez, and I'll be honest with you, I've been critical of Floyd, but he took on Shane Mosley, a guy that a lot of people thought he was scared of, and he totally dominated him too.
JM: I mean, it's like this: Are you going to turn down $40 or $50 million? They ain't doing anything but taking blood. It's not going to kill you. Most fighters have to take blood 2 or 3 days before the fight anyway. That's part of the sport. Floyd's not afraid of Pacquiao at all, but at the same time, if I have suspicion about someone who is doing things that I can't believe, and I've given the most power to him, I'm going to use my power as well.
I mean, at the end of all this, no matter how good Floyd does as a fighter, you know, he might be one of the greatest fighters to ever put on a pair of gloves, but even if he don't, this will be a part of his legacy: Maybe, he might be the guy that cleaned up boxing on that higher level. It may become mandatory in championship fights to do Olympic style drug testing. On that level, those guys can afford it. It's not a big deal, and the promoters can pay for it.
That might be the biggest significance of Floyd's career, whether he goes on to beat Pacquiao, and does whatever else beyond that.
He will probably be more remembered if he changes boxing on that level, where for championship fights, these guys have to be tested in that way. That will be more powerful than anything that he can achieve in the ring.
LS: Let's say they do manage to make the fight. The way that Floyd has dominated almost everybody he's fought, do you think that Pacquiao has the tools to make it a good, close fight?
JM: Well, Pacquiao has good hand-speed himself, so that makes him dangerous. But If Pacquiao agrees to the random testing, I think he will get knocked out. I would say, probably within 5 rounds, Pacquiao will get knocked out, because he can't get out of the way of anything.
One thing that Floyd has always shown; once they start saying that somone's going to beat him, Floyd don't just beat them, he dominates them. He shows that they don't even belong in the same ring with him. He did it with Mosley, he did it with Marquez, and everybody else they've said that about.
Floyd's got a gift. Once he figures you out, check, and checkmate. He's mastered that probably better than any fighter I've ever seen, and I'm not saying that because he's my nephew. I'm saying that because I've seen it.
LS: And he does that in the ring, during the fight.
JM: Yeah. He makes those adjustments. I mean just like with Zab Judah. Zab Judah started out like he could just run through Floyd, but the second Floyd figured him out, game over. Now he's being dissected. He's like a science project. And it didn't just happen with him. It happened with all the guys that were supposed to give Floyd a challenge. Once he figured them out, it was over.
LS: In the Mosley fight, what was running through your mind in round 2? Did it worry you when Floyd got stumbled? That looked pretty serious for a while.
JM: It's funny because when I was there, I had a good seat, but I wasn't ring-side. From the seat where I was at, it didn't look like Floyd was as hurt as he was when I seen it on TV. I would have probably been more panicked if I'd seen it on TV.
LS: (laughing)
JM: It didn't look like Floyd was really hurt that bad, but when I saw it on TV, I got a chance to see it for myself. Sometimes when you watch a fight and you're actually there, you get so caught up and involved that you actually miss things.
LS: Floyd came out of that and fought aggressively. He was backing Mosley up. It was kind of a different style for Floyd. I thought he was going to knock Mosley out in the latter rounds.
JM: I think he would have knocked Mosley out if Mosley wasn't doing so much holding. I've never seen Mosley do that. Have you ever seen him hold like that?
LS: I've never seen him perform anything like that. He seemed so tense and scared. Floyd would feint and Mosley would nearly do a back-flip.
JM: Yeah, and this was the same guy who was supposed to be fearless. He's supposed to be a fierce puncher and super strong, but yet, Floyd was pushing him around. Floyd's supposed to be a boxer, and supposed to be the one running, but Floyd was fighting his fight. Floyd was coming at him.
LS: The way that Floyd fought that fight led Freddie Roach to say that he thinks Floyd's legs are gone. I don't think Roach really believes that. I think he's just playing mind-games.
JM: (laughing) His legs are gone because he got hit in one fight? How can he say that when Floyd thoroughly dominated Mosley after being hurt in that round? I don't even understand that comment. And this is the same guy where they got a video where Shane asked, 'Why won't you let me fight Pacquiao', and he said, 'Oh no. You're too dangerous'. If you think Shane's too dangerous, what the hell do you think Floyd's going to do to him?
LS: I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, Jeff. I hope we can talk again some time.
JM: Likewise. Thank you.
Source: examiner.com
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