Floyd Mayweather Jr., boxing’s number one pound-for-pound fighter, admitted on Wednesday that boxing is no longer as fun as it used to be.
“I don’t enjoy it like I once did,” said Mayweather, a world champion in five weight divisions who is preparing for the toughest bout of his career against eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao.
“It is at a point where it is business. It is my job. I go to the gym. I train. I know what I have to do,” he added. “There was a time when it was fun, but I am to a point now where I am really over all of that stuff.”
If Floyd Mayweather is not enjoying the sport right now, it may play a factor in how Manny Pacquiao approaches the fight.
Not so fast. Does anyone remember the psychological warfare Bernard Hopkins employed against Oscar De La Hoya? Leading up to their epic clash in 2004, one of Hopkins’s teeth fell off, which he told De La Hoya was a result of old age.
“This guy made me think; made me overconfident, I’m fighting this old man,” said De La Hoya. “I was 10-15 years younger than him. He made me think if I just get by training camp, I don’t have to do extra.”
Although De La Hoya started the fight off strong. The former six-division world champion was walked down over a period of time by the cagey Bernard Hopkins; who landed a brutal left hook to the liver, and De La Hoya was counted out for the first time in his professional career.
If Manny Pacquiao is paying any attention, he should look back to what another legendary defensive fighter did and not take Mayweather’s comments seriously. Mayweather is playing an old-school game, and it’s best that he not fall for it.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not chopping trees just for business; he’s coming to knock Manny Pacquiao out, and the Filipino superstar should come with some power of his own come May 2nd.
