Jeff Mayweather: “I think Floyd won more fans than he lost”

ON May 5th, Floyd Mayweather Jr. 43-0 (26) kept his unblemished record in tact with a dominant 12-round decision over a game Miguel Cotto 37-3 (30). The fight, considered by many as the most exciting and challenging in the 35 year-old’s career, marked 2nd time “Money” has moved up to the 154 pound division and grabbed gold. Throughout the promotion of the fight Mayweather expressed his desire to knock Cotto out, despite being the naturally smaller man. To the surprise of many, Floyd did not move around the ring much at all during the fight. Instead he chose to give the fans a war and stand toe-to-toe with Cotto, even though his boxing ability appeared to be too much for Cotto in the early rounds. His detractors (especially Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach) feel the fight exposed that Floyd is on the decline, and that his legs are gone.

Floyd’s rival Manny Pacquiao 54-4-2 (38) dropped a controversial split decision the unbeaten Timothy Bradley 29-0 (12) almost 2 weeks ago. Bradley drew up a poster promoting a November 10 rematch between himself and the Filipino star weeks prior to their June 9 clash, Pacquiao appeared to dominate the fight and the whole boxing world has been in an uproar since the decision. After a second look at the fight, some opinions changed on the margin of victory bust most still see it as a win for Pacquaio. Despite the world-wide hunger to see Manny and Floyd face off in the ring, the fight seems less likely to happen. Now more than ever Team Pacquiao are looking in other directions for the near future for obvious reasons, but some are beginning to wonder if Arum ever really had intentions on making a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

For his part, Floyd began is 20 days into his 87-day sentence at the Clark County Detention Center. He has stated his desire to fight oner more time this year, possibly in November. So where does that leave us? Uncle Jeff, took time with Undisputed to give his assessment of Floyds victory over Cotto, and his thoughts on his nephew’s future.

I felt it was a great performance. He was a bit more combatitive than everybody wanted, but at the same time he wanted the knockout so he tok some serious chances. He fought a smart and intelligent fight, but for me personally I would have liked to see him fight like he did the first two rounds, it would have been much easier to just pick him apart. But, this is the type of fight the people like to see and appreciate, but personally I would rather he just dominate him the way I know he can.

I think it was a little bit of both. He is not really a 154 pound fighter, but Cotto’s always been a very solid fighter. He was coming off the redemption win over Margarito, so he was highly motivated. If you take away the first fight with Margarito where most think he was cheated, and then the Pacquiao fight where he was weight drained, he’s basically like an undefeated fighter. He’s a guy who knows how to win and he’s a big puncher, he had 30 knockouts in 39 fights. The way he fought Cotto was the same way he was working in training camp, but of course these guys aren’t Miguel Cotto, he was walking them down. But it was an entertaining fight which is what he wanted. Floyd’s always been criticized for this and that so he decided to stand flat-footed, but these guys are supposed to big punchers and bigger than he is but he’s still beating ‘em. Not only is his beating them but he’s out fighting them.

A true fighter and champion never makes excuses. I know for a fact going into the fight Floyd was sick, because I was sick too and I caught my cold from him. That’s one of the reasons why his nose was bleeding as much as it did. (Laughingly) He got hit too, of course that didn’t help, but his cold was breaking too so that helped the bleeding to continue. But no real fighter, no real champion is going to say I had a cold.

It didn’t concern me at all because I knew what a lot of it was coming from. A bloody nose is the least of anybody’s problems in the ring. A cut over the eye is much worst. People are used to Floyd dominating every second of every round, and if Floyd continued to do what he did in the first two rounds that’s what would have happened. Then nobody would have anything to say other than Floyd ran or that Cotto is washed up and had no business being in the fight from the beginning. We all know he’ll never get the credit he deserves, but in this fight I think he gained more credibility for being a warrior. He fought a guy that actually outweighed him by about 20 pounds come fight night because Floyd came in at 147. Cotto came in at least about 164. People expected Floyd to come out and do what Pacquaio did to him but Pacquiao fought him at a catchweight. He fought Cotto at 145, if he had fought him at 154 it would have been a totally different fight. He’s a full fledged junior middleweight, he’s bigger and stronger at 154, and he takes a better punch too. You see that Cotto is a force to be reckoned with when he’s not depleted.

People who think that obviously don’t know s*** about boxing. He fought a guy that outweighed him by nearly 20 pounds. He didn’t run, he didn’t outbox him, he out fought him. They fought two different versions of Cotto so that makes no sense. Floyd chose to fight the way he did. If he didn’t wanna go for a knockout and give the fans an exciting fight I beleive he would have shut Cotto out easily. Then people would say Cotto’s shot, so Floyd’s in a lose-lose situation. It’s a testament to how good he is because people just couldn’t believe he got his nose busted. He’s a fighter, he’s a human being, he bleeds just like everybody. At the end of the day I look at it like this. The fact that people would bring up a bloody nose in a world class prize fight says one thing, this dude’s special. I think Floyd won more fans than he lost, because real boxing fans know that Floyd dominated a bigger guy. Cotto’s far from done, he showed that on fight night.

Floyd can do whatever he wants to do. He don’t worry about what people say because they’re gonna say it anyway. No matter what he’s done in his career it’s always something. If the Pacquiao fight happens it happens. If it don’t, it don’t. Everybody knows why this fight aint happened yet. We know Pacquiao is not his own boss, and his boss is not going to allow him to fight Floyd because he won’t make much money off of it if any. At the end of the day it’s all about Bob Arum. He can continue to make money off a guy that’s hot, and if he keeps matching him up with guys from his stable and make all in-house fights then he keeps all the money. Pacquaio will never see the $40 million that Floyd is offerring him. He may see that in the pay per view numbers but he won’t get that. Pacquiao lost to Marquez anyway so why would Floyd care what anybody has to say. After that fight a lot of people are saying that he don’t have a chance against Floyd. Now they see what I’ve seen all along. Now the bad the decision in the Bradley fight, Bob Arum doesn’t want the fight and that’s the bottom line.

At the end of the day it’s not all about pleasing the fans, it’s still a business.The whole 50/50 thing is Bob Arum, that’s not Pacquiao talking. Pacquiao already agreed to things before it hit the media, but once it became public, all of a sudden it’s “I gotta have this and I gotta have that”. If you’re not doing Floyd’s numbers why should you get what he get? The #1 draw in the game should get the #1 pay, it’s that simple. And that’s just business.