David Flatman Column: In the ring, Mayweather is untouchable. Out of it, he’s a classless braggart
This column appears in the current edition of Sport magazine. , and
There are elite athletes, legendary athletes, and there are those we count as great.
Most would rightly claim that anyone who has been paid as a professional or achieved international amateur status ought to be classed as elite, but there is a large difference between a good pro and a legend.
My career in rugby was long and I played a bit for England, but a legend I am not. Equally, I played alongside men who won more than 50 international caps but with whom I would not associate greatness.
When it comes to proper, widely uncontested, Hall of Fame greatness, Floyd Mayweather has the record to qualify him for his own set of keys. Whatever happens, he will retire from boxing as one of the very best to ever strap his hands up and slip on a pair of gloves. But I think ‘greatness’, as both a word and a notion, must come complete with an inherent goodness, a charm, a majesty. And Mayweather has none of these things.
Outside the ring, we probably shouldn’t be concerned with how he lives his life, except that battering women makes him a horrible bastard. It is never excusable, but it just does seem even worse that it is a world-class puncher doing the battering. Domestic bullying aside, he has all the humility and charm of a gold-toothed rapper, bragging about the Rolls Royce he’s ruined by fitting a pair of spinning chrome wheels that are nine feet in diameter. He is a classless braggart.
In the ring, he is untouchable. Literally. I am one of the fight fans who paid their money last weekend and left feeling rather underwhelmed at the lack of toe-to-toe action. Mayweather’s was a victory built on defence, evasiveness and counter-punching. All a little dull to the uninitiated (me), but all also undeniably impressive.
He is legendary, no doubt. But the greatness he has achieved through talent and graft, he dilutes to the point of liquidation with arrogance - and that’s a shame. I get that, in individual sports, it’s every man for himself, and that this often leads to sharper-edged egos. That’s part of the fun, but Mayweather seems never to have been told that being a good bloke is as important as having a load of wins on your record.
I suppose he will always be hugely wealthy and will live every day as a king in his own world. I just find it a shame that in my mind - and in those of many others, I assume - he will never be adored as one of the greats, because all he did was win.