Boxing Legend’s Son Calls Out Mayweather… Record?

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his entourage
have long sported gear with
“50-0” emblazoned on it, certain
the undefeated boxer would defeat
UFC star Conor McGregor.
Mayweather’s confidence was validated,
when the 40-year-old beat
McGregor, via 10th-round TKO, in
the massively hyped fight Saturday
night at T-Mobile Arena, to preserve
his perfect record and surpass
Rocky Marciano’s revered 49-0
mark.
Now, the legendary heavyweight
champion’s son would like to see
one thing added to Mayweather’s
record for the most wins without a
loss or draw: an asterisk.
“To me, it’s an exhibition fight,”
Rocky Marciano Jr. told The Post
by phone, referencing McGregor’s
professional boxing debut. “I think it
definitely should [have an asterisk].
There’s such a big difference from
the boxing ring to a UFC octagon,
and it’s such a big learning curve.
Mayweather’s had an incredible
career and he’s had 20 years of
greatness, but I would honestly give
a boxer who has come up through
the amateur ranks, having his first
professional fight more of a chance
than McGregor.
“The fight went pretty much the
way I expected it to go. Mayweather
would take it slow in the beginning
and see what McGregor would
throw at him. Mayweather knew that
McGregor would tire in the later
rounds.”
Marciano Jr. believes that impartial
parties should come to the same
conclusion.
“If people want to say this is breaking
Marciano’s record, sure, it’s disappointing
because you want to
see him challenged and fight the
best he could,” Marciano Jr. said. “If
he wants to be the best pound-forpound
fighter of his generation or
his weight class, I think as fans of
boxing, we want to see people pitted
against the best and then see
the result, and that’s not what we
[got].
“There is such a discrepancy in
experience. Will they say, ‘Yeah, he
got it, but look how he got his 50th
win?’ That’s the conversation moving
forward.”
Following what Mayweather claims
to be the final match of his career, he
was surprisingly humble.
Marciano Jr. was appreciative of
Mayweather’s post-fight remarks, in
which the retiring fighter, who adorns
“TBE” – The Best Ever – on much of
his merchandise, paid respect to the
only undefeated heavyweight champion
in history.
“Rocky Marciano is a legend,” Mayweather
said. “I take my hat off to
him. He paved the way for me to be
where I’m at.”
Marciano fought from 1947 to 1955,
going 49-0, while recording a remarkable
43 knockouts. After retiring at
the age of 32, Marciano – who died
in a plane crash in 1969 – nearly considered
returning to the ring after a
lengthy layoff – like Mayweather –
to fight new heavyweight champion
Floyd Patterson.
“He was offered a big lump sum
of money to come out of retirement
– I don’t know, I heard numbers,
$800,000, $1 million – and he was
still in his mid-30s,” Marciano Jr. said.
“He got in training and he wanted
to see how he felt, and he realized,
it’s hard to take that break and come
back into it. Would he get 100 percent
motivated to be like he was? He just
realized, he couldn’t do that anymore.
“He could go through the motions
and make another big paycheck –
maybe win, maybe lose – but he
wasn’t gonna risk that record, and
risk his legacy that he knew he had
for some money, if he wasn’t able to
give it 100 percent. And he didn’t feel
like he could. He valued his undefeated
record and notoriety of never losing
a professional fight over another
paycheck.”
Mayweather risked his record
against a novice for a nine-figure paycheck,
and remained perfect.
But what does his record mean?
“The writers and the historians,
they’ll decide what the significance of
this is,” Marciano Jr. said. “Is it tying
the record, or surpassing the record,
or is it the difference that the Marciano
family sees, that this is a totally different
weight division?
“He was the only undefeated heavyweight
champion of the world.”

        Not
         so
       fast !
By Howie Kussoy

MN Magazine

MN Magazine

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