Leading up to his 2007 fight vs. Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather began his transition from “Pretty Boy” to “Money.”
The flip of the script turned him from a lovable fighter who could have been the next “Sugar” Ray Leonard to the fighter people paid hundreds of dollars to see on pay-per-view to get knocked down to canvas and be humbled.
The dream of that happening came to end Saturday when Mayweather defeated UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor by 10th-round TKO to end his legendary career at 50-0.
When referee Robert Byrd called a stop to the fight, Mayweather ran to the corner, climbed two ropes and posed for the crowd. Watching a triumphant Mayweather made me realize: For this one night, Mayweather is the hero boxing sorely needed after being the villain for the last 10-plus years.
Following the De La Hoya fight and fully entrenched in his persona after disposing Ricky Hatton in December 2007, Mayweather turned to the path of least resistance. His goal was to make the most money without a care of what people thought. He faced a natural lightweight in Juan Manuel Marquez and made him move up for a 144-pound catchweight fight. He fought an aging Shane Mosley. He took on Robert Guerrero. He made a 23-year-old, extraordinarily green Canelo Alvarez — a budding star who was nowhere near ready for a prime-time fight — move down to 152 pounds for a catchweight bout.
Concurrently, on-and-off negotiations to make a fight with Manny Pacquiao happen lasted for almost six years. It was the fight the fans wanted to see, pitting the Nos. 1 and 2 pound-for-pound fighters in the world against one another.
But every time it looked like the fight would be made, Mayweather decided he wasn’t too interested in making it happen. The popular opinion shared by many — including myself — was that, in their primes Pacquiao would win and Mayweather was very protective of his undefeated record. With Mayweather running out of guys to face, fans started to lose interest. Below-average buy rates for his two fights against Marcos Maidana in 2014 led to the fight the world wanted.
While the hype reached Super Bowl levels, the fight was a complete dud: Mayweather won a lackluster decision over an aging Pacquiao (who only landed 81 punches). Even though the fight broke every financial record and was the talk of the world, fans felt as though they were duped. They stopped buying pay-per-views.
For some, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight felt like another body blow to a sport that was already on the way down to the canvas. While the bout was financially successful, if the two biggest names in the sport going at it wasn’t a launching pad for future popularity, maybe MMA was the real future of combat sports.
Then, in 2016, boxing started to slowly rebound due to a swarm of talent. Canelo reached his potential. Anthony Joshua showed he was a budding stud heavyweight. The heavy-handed Gennady Golovkin knocked out opponents left and right. A seemingly perfect fighter in Vasyl Lomachenko emerged. The quiet warrior Mikey Garcia started taking fights the public wanted to see.
That train rolled into 2017 as those talented fighters started giving fans more fights they wanted to see: Joshua-Wladimir Klitschko in April, Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in May, Garcia-Adrien Broner in July. Next up, a Sept. 16 showdown pitting Alvarez vs. Golovkin, two of the very best in the world.
Mayweather had retired in September 2015 after disposing of Andre Berto and appeared content to stay away. “Money” continued to unabashedly flaunt his wealth to the world; he was spotted in strip clubs, bought fancy cars and shared photos of his lavish vacations around the globe.
Then came McGregor, who started to mention Mayweather’s name after he knocked out Jose Aldo at UFC 194 in 2014.
The fight seemed like a pipe dream: MMA against boxing in the squared circle; UFC king vs. boxing legend. But in today’s age of social media, fans kept talking about the fight’s potential, and the media continued to feed the hype beast. In June, the papers were signed. That’s where Mayweather’s story started to change.
The boxing world was livid. Fans and media alike felt McGregor didn’t deserve this fight, that he would get destroyed and wouldn’t land a single punch. In the lead-up, though, Mayweather kept insisting he owed the boxing world something for the way the Pacquiao fight went down.
While the hatred for Mayweather was understandable, for one night the boxing fandom united as one and rooted for someone it thought it could never root for again. There was more on the line than just Mayweather’s legacy: The soul of boxing was at stake.
For the first three rounds, it wasn’t looking good for Mayweather as McGregor was in control. But Mayweather, ever the strategist, stuck to his game plan and went to work. He finished a gassed McGregor in Round 10.
“I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see,” Mayweather told Showtime’s Jim Gray after the fight. “I owed them for the Pacquiao fight. I had to come straight ahead and give the fans a show. That’s what I gave them.”
For one night, Floyd Mayweather turned into the boxing hero he was destined to be — and always should have been.
