Is Floyd Mayweather Really Responsible For Big Fights Not Happening?

Is Floyd Mayweather Really Responsible For Big Fights Not Happening?

By Will Lott

I saw a clip recently from Devin Haney on Twitter about Floyd Mayweather, which sparked many thoughts in my mind. In the clip, he says, “In the UFC, those guys fight each other, lose, fight again still equally as big, maybe even bigger. Mayweather kind of messed up the game with the undefeated is everything.”

Within this quote, there are a few things to unpack. Firstly, the reason comparing Floyd Mayweather to the UFC is unfair, is because the UFC is a single promotional company. Every fighter is signed up to the same promotional company and the same network. Fighters have to fight who they are told to. As a result, there is far less politics in the UFC, making fights far easier to make.

Now, if we compare that to boxing, there are multiple promotional companies all signed up to different television networks. If you take Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, for example, a difficulty behind that fight is AJ is with Matchroom, and Fury is with Queensbury Promotions. Matchroom has a network deal with Dazn, while Queensbury has a network deal with BT. Already, there are issues with negotiating a deal before even considering that Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren do not remotely get along.

Add to this, at least four world titles available in each division. Within that are various rankings for each belt and thus various mandatory challengers. As a result, fights to be undisputed are difficult to make. Within that are various payments that have to be made to each sanctioning body for each world title. Payments may also need to be made to mandatory challengers for them to step aside.

Finally, we get to the self-proclaimed best-ever Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather retired without a blemish on his 50-fight record, having fought in 26 world title fights and beaten multiple current and future Hall of Famers. His CV includes the likes of Arturo Gatti, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and of course, Manny Pacquiao. It’s not a bad list for a fighter who was supposedly too obsessed with protecting his 0. There is, of course, a real argument that Mayweather has made an undefeated record seem more important to this new generation of fighters. For the latter part of his career, he certainly did take great pride in being unbeaten and eventually surpassing Rocky Marciano’s unblemished record. However, he did so whilst still fighting big names in unification fights in front of sell-out crowds on pay-per-view television. People can argue he sometimes waited for fighters to start declining before facing them, as was the case with Pacquaio, but still, few fighters will ever have a CV close to Mayweather’s.

Plenty of boxers these days like to build up an unbeaten run in the hope of expanding their fanbase and making their names more profitable. However, it is not usually an obsession with remaining undefeated, which stops big fights from happening. As mentioned earlier, it is generally down to the politics of the sport, and to throw Floyd Mayweather’s name under the bus is unfair.

Errol Spence vs. Terrence Crawford didn’t take years to make because they were scared to lose an unbeaten record. It is likely to do with different promoters and different broadcasters making a deal exceptionally hard to do.