MAYWEATHER’S RETURN – IT WAS THE SKILLS NOT THE SCALES
By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist

Las Vegas, NV – (IB) – September 19, 2009 – In the highly anticipated return at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, Floyd “Money” Mayweather silenced his critics and kept his unblemished record intact. Mayweather is now (40-0, 25 KOs) as he thoroughly dominated Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) and re-staked his claim as the true #1 Pound-For-Pound fighter in the world.

While some skeptics may attribute Mayweather’s dominance to the fact that he was a bigger fighter than Marquez, I strongly disagree.  It was the SKILLS not the SCALES that determined this very lopsided display of brilliance by Mayweather.  To land approximately 60% of his punches while limiting Marquez to only landing 12% of his, far exceeded any gap that the SCALES may have produced in favor of Mayweather.
 
Simply stated, Mayweather was brilliant!  So much so that he literally shut out Marquez by winning every single round and floored Marquez with a one punch left hook in the 2nd round.  I give credit to Marquez for his toughness to hang in there and go the distance but I don’t recall ever seeing such a talent gap in a fight between two future hall-of-famers.  The officials scored the fight 120-107, 119-108, and 118-109.

Mayweather took a great fighter in Marquez, who many felt defeated Manny Pacquiao twice despite coming away with a draw and a split decision loss, and made him look like an amateur taking on a professional.  This fight was never close and Floyd exited this bout without a mark on him.  Very impressive for a fighter who had been out of the ring for 21 months!  The mere fact that he agreed to fight Marquez as his first fight back was commendable and just goes to show that not only is Floyd great, but he knows it too.

So what’s next for Floyd “Money” Mayweather?  I am hopeful that his next fight will be against the winner of the Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight in November.  By the way, it is not guaranteed that the winner will be Pacquiao either.  I believe Cotto stands a very good chance of winning that fight and in all likelihood, neither fighter will be able to defeat Mayweather. 

Again, it’s the SKILLS not the SCALES and rather you like Mayweather or not, he reigns supreme in the category of SKILLS and it’s hard to imagine any of the fighters defeating him at this stage of his career, including Mosley, Pacquiao, Cotto, or any of the current welterweight fighters.

Hats off to “Money” Mayweather for an awesome performance of making a challenging task look simple and effortless against a tough fighter such as Juan Manuel Marquez.

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Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@youthofhonor.org