Mayweather Retires, Few Care

The tree fell in the empty forest, crashing and thudding the sport of boxing once again.

But nobody noticed.

In many ways, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has been the perfect symbolic figure for all that ails a sport used to be part of the American fabric but now toils in obscurity. And it’s really not any fault of Mayweather, a one-time five-division world champion who Friday announced his retirement at age 31 with his record standing at a perfect 39-0 with 25 knockouts.

Let’s start by saying there’s no need to pass around a hat to take a collection for another punch-drunk pugilist who fought until they wouldn’t let him anymore. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. made a ton of money in boxing, and by all accounts, he still has quite a bit of it as well as the ability to speak and make rational thoughts. The fact that he’s made so much money and still has his health is part of the reason why he claimed he’s getting out at this time.

Of course, there are skeptics out there that are saying that this is a ploy. He’s angling for more money in his September rematch with Oscar De La Hoya and is using the threat of retirement as a part of the negotiation. Others are saying that he might take a year or two off, but he’ll back. They all come back eventually, especially when they have plenty of quality fighting years left.

But let’s assume that this is for real and Mayweather stays retired, and take some time to examine his career and, more importantly, his legacy.

Why exactly do so few people care about his retirement? Why aren’t there cries about how horrible it is for the sport, another death blow to a sport firmly implanted in its coffin?

This is the No. 1 performer in boxing today, and he’s every bit as talented and dominating in his sport as a Kobe Bryant is in the NBA or a Tiger Woods is in golf. I know, not as many people recognize this because until he fought De La Hoya, appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and most recently Wrestlemania, most sports fans couldn’t have picked Floyd Mayweather out of a lineup.

But he is really, really good, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, and a fighter that should be recognized as one of the all-time greats in a sport that has produced high-profile athletic superstars like Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard.

I’ve been following boxing since the late 1970s, and aside from Ray Leonard, I wouldn’t put another fighter in my lifetime in Mayweather’s class.

The problem is that boxing is a sport that is so marginal in today’s sports conscience in the United States, it doesn’t really matter if the best fighter in the last 30 years is retiring in his prime. Whether Mayweather retired or fought for another 10 years, making millions and millions of dollars and winning a dozen more titles, it wasn’t going to hurt or help boxing to any significance.

There are a lot of reasons for this. In no particular order, here are a few:

* Mayweather is simply too good to attract the attention of fans outside the hard-core boxing enthusiasts. He fought 39 times, and it’s fair to say that 37 of those fights were lopsided victories, whether by knockout or decision. And in the other two, he eked out a tougher than expected 12-round decision against Jose Luis Castillo in a lightweight title fight in April 2002, and he won a split decision over De La Hoya last May. But pool 100 people who watched both of those fights, and 80 percent of them would say that even in those fights, there was no doubt that Mayweather won.

Another thing related to this is Mayweather always went by the philosophy that a win is a win, no matter how he did it. Yes, there were times he looked exciting and fan-pleasing, but plenty of others where he was content to out-box an overmatched opponent and take a decision.

As for his other opponents, he hasn’t fought a collection of stiffs over the last 11 years. Genero Hernandez, Diego Corrales, Arturo Gatti, Zab Judah and Ricky Hatton were all fighters with considerable pedigree when they fought Mayweather, and all were soundly beaten and in some cases humiliated by Mayweather.

In many ways this is what plagued and earned Roy Jones, Jr. a lot of criticism in the hay-day of his career as a middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight superstar, as well. The big difference is that eventually Jones crashed and burned when his extraordinary skills deteriorated in his late 30s. Mayweather never let that happen.

In comparing Mayweather to Leonard, while the competition that Mayweather has fought has been good, Leonard’s was outstanding. Unfortunately for Mayweather, Wilfredo Benitez, Robert Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler didn’t fight in his era.

While he proved on TV last year that he could dance pretty well on stage, in the ring, Mayweather just didn’t have as many dance partners that could keep up with him.

* Boxing today just isn’t what it was in previous decades in terms of exposure, and it starts in the amateurs, most notably the Olympic Games.

When Leonard was an Olympic champion in 1976, everyone of his fights was as much a fixture to the ABC Olympic coverage as were Bruce Jenner’s races on the track or Nadia Comaneci's balance beam routines in gymnastics. Amateur fighters didn’t have to wear head gear those days and the stark differences between amateur boxing and pro boxing weren’t nearly as great as they are today.

Fans watching those Montreal Games were left with the impression that Ray Leonard was a boxing star even before he turned professional. In turn, every time he fought professionally early in his career, TV networks raced for the rights to cover it, because they knew he was a household name and people would watch.

Such was not the case by the time Mayweather came along. Really since NBC took over coverage of the Summer Olympics in 1988, it has continued to place less and less emphasis on boxing every four years. Like was the case in 2000 and ’04, Olympic boxing in the 1996 Atlanta Games was a second class citizen. It would have been impossible for even an American gold medalist, as was the case with Philadelphian David Reid, to get the kind of push enjoyed by Leonard or any of his contemporaries.

As for Mayweather, it didn’t help that he lost controversially in the semifinals and had to settle for a bronze.

Because of his abilities and the fact that Top Rank and Bob Arum signed him and featured him often on TV early in his career, Mayweather received much more a financial and publicity boost than most amateurs do when turning pro, but with much less fanfare than used to be the case.

* Because of the way the economic scale is tilted in professional boxing today, there was very little incentive for Mayweather or the people around him to make him into the type of figure that people could relate to or recognize, especially early in his career. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a household name or thought of as a great athlete on par with those in the major sports, Mayweather was still paid like one.

He was signed by Top Rank, one of the highest-paying promoters in the sport. All of his fights were on TV. By the time he fought for his first pro title in 1998, he was being paid handsomely by HBO. This man was making millions long before he started to gain mainstream notoriety or started to fight in pay-per-view main events.

Boxing rewards fighters for a lot of reasons, and ignores others for a lot of reasons. Not making too much of a political analogy, the reality is that the differences between the upper class in the sport and the middle and lower classes are as stark as those that have existed in everyday American life over the last seven or eight years.

Mayweather was one of the well-paid elite. Fighting for survival hasn’t been part of his equation throughout most of his career, and boxing is a sport driven by the appeal of such stories.

* Like it or not, personalities sell too. While Mayweather’s background and personality might be relatively indicative of the modern superstar athlete today, it’s not a big seller to the type of fan that has paid for boxing in this country.

Firstly, his background. Yes, he comes from a family of fighters, from his father to his uncles, but the Mayweathers aren’t exactly the Waltons. With apologies to Floyd’s uncle Jeff, the Mayweather family is about as likable as the Mansons.

Floyd Sr. was an average fighter at best, who served time in prison for selling drugs. He’s by all accounts a very good trainer, but the only thing he seemingly does better is talk about how great a trainer he is.

Uncle Roger Mayweather, Floyd Jr.’s current trainer, was a very good pro boxer and a two-division world champion, but he almost always played the villain role. He’s also pretty proud of his own ability to train fighters and like his brother has done time in prison.

As for Floyd Jr., he is hardly the modest type, is known for his extravagant lifestyle, his bling and the posse that travels with him wherever he goes. Throw in multiple scraps with the law over domestic violence charges and a bar fight assault, which has led to numerous stints on probation, and it’s safe to say boxing isn’t the only family pastime that he’s carried on.

As far of sports in general, especially boxing, we don’t expect our fighters to be saints or choir boys, but some make it very difficult to root for.

No doubt, we haven’t heard the last of Floyd Joy Mayweather, Jr., who through the years has gone by the nicknames “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “Money Mayweather.” He may or may not fight again.
But guys like him crave the spotlight and being told how great he is. Money or not, ego drives many a boxing career, and it’s hard to imagine too many with larger egos than Mayweather.

As a boxing fan, however, his retirement is a reason for considerable sadness.

Not necessarily because he won’t be fighting De La Hoya again, or an attractive opponent like Miguel Cotto in the future. But rather because so few people care.