Does Maidana Fight Show Proof that Floyd Mayweather is Now Declining?
Floyd Mayweather is 37 years old in a sport that is usually very unforgiving of age. More pertinent is that Mayweather’s style, that of the defensive, counter-punching slickster, is one that doesn’t hold out very well down the long stretch. Conventional gym wisdom is that reflexes and speed are the first things to go, with power and chin being the last things to go.
According to conventional wisdom Floyd Mayweather should already be on the downward slide, but quite the contrary, he looks almost as good now as he did seven years ago. Some have read the outcome of this past weekend’s Maidana vs. Mayweather clash as confirmation of that norm. Yet if Mayweather is in decline, it has taken very little from him over the transition from being a peak early 30s fighter and a still-prime late 30s fighter.
What B-Hop And Sweet Pea Show Us
In thinking about how much longer Floyd Mayweather has, two cases can serve as useful object lessons: ageless wonder Bernard Hopkins and past defensive wizard Pernell Whitaker.
“Sweet Pea” Whitaker is Mayweather’s predecessor as defensive grand master, fighting in the very same weight divisions to boot. The Virginia native’s last competitive fight was his 1997 clash with Oscar de la Hoya, for all intents a Draw, fought when he was 33 years old. After that, he rapidly slid into irrelevance, becoming a hapless victim for Felix Trinidad just two years later before suffering a career-ending, humiliating knockout defeat to a journeyman.
Yet Whitaker was already faltering by the mid-1990s, showing a tendency to slack off at the gym so he could party and do a little cocaine. Simply put, Whitaker was losing his focus and not taking the best care of himself. And while not a big puncher, Mayweather certainly packs more of a wallop than the feather-fisted Whitaker.
Contrasting against that, Mayweather is a consummate gym rat who never comes into the ring at less than 100%, and takes excellent care of himself outside of training camp. Mayweather is not quite the monastic figure that Bernard Hopkins is, but he certainly understands the wisdom that a little abstinence and discipline in daily life lengthens a boxer’s career greatly.
Yet Hopkins is still soldering on because he has adapted as he has gotten older. B-Hop’s lanky frame allowed him to grow into a solid light heavyweight easily, and in so doing he entered a division that was more forgiving of his declining speed. That was key in his evolution from being The Executioner into the sport’s modern day Archie Moore.
The smaller Mayweather doesn’t have nearly the same degree of forgiveness. He can’t move up to light middleweight and stay there without suffering a self-defeating loss in speed and mobility, so in reaching welterweight Mayweather has already maxed out his real size potential. Furthermore, welterweight is a speedier weight class than light heavyweight. An aging, slowing Mayweather won’t be able to stay in the game as Hopkins has.
Good ‘Til Forty
Keeping this in mind, I don’t see any reason why Floyd Mayweather won’t have at least a few more good years ahead of him. The important thing to keep in mind about the Mayweather vs. Maidana clash is that Pretty Boy fought Maidana’s fight. Maybe that is because he chose to slug it out with Maidana, or perhaps (and more likely) he was forced to do it by Maidana’s dogged aggression. Either way, he played according to the Argentine’s tune and still eeked out the win, and this against the toughest, strongest, most powerful welterweight in the game today. That is not the performance of a boxer in serious decline.
That said, I do not see him able to stay in the sport well into his 40s as Bernard Hopkins has. Even if Pretty Boy wished to do so, he won’t be able to transition nearly as well, and that will force his retirement should he not show the wisdom to depart at the right time.
