{"id":941537,"date":"2026-10-26T12:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941537\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T12:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:50:22","slug":"floyd-mayweather-asked-if-there-was-ever-an-opponent-who-came-close-to-beating-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941537\/","title":{"rendered":"Floyd Mayweather asked if there was ever an opponent who came close to beating him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Floyd Mayweather has considered whether there was a single opponent who came even remotely close to handing him a professional defeat.<\/p>\n

Having become a five-division world champion, the American retired with a 50-0 record following his 10th-round stoppage of Conor McGregor<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

It was hardly the most commendable way to cap off his career but, in previous years, Mayweather had claimed more impressive victories against the likes of Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley.<\/p>\n

In fact, many will often highlight the brief moment of jeopardy when, against Mosley in 2010, Mayweather had his knees buckled by a right hand in round two.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, he would go on to win a unanimous decision but there have been other times, too, when the Hall of Famer has not been fully in control.<\/p>\n

His first encounter with the rugged Marcos Maidana, for instance, delivered a closely-fought battle that saw Mayweather edge a majority decision in 2014.<\/p>\n

Even before that, when he was campaigning at 135lbs in 2002, many felt Mayweather was fortunate to win his first fight against Jose Luis Castillo<\/a> by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

But while Maidana and Castillo are often named as his toughest opponents, who enjoyed ample success against him, the 49-year-old has told PBD Podcast<\/a> that he never once came close to losing a professional bout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [would] go back to my corner and they\u2019d say: We need to pick it up a little bit. So, I\u2019d pick it up. No [nobody came close.] I\u2019m Mayweather \u2013 everybody easy. If I don\u2019t believe in myself, who\u2019s gonna believe in me? I\u2019m the best \u2026 You can\u2019t talk boxing without talking Mayweather.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advice to \u201cpick it up\u201d may have been offered after he almost got dropped by Mosley, as Mayweather dominated the third round and handily won their contest.<\/p>\n

In the past, Mayweather may not have said he was close to losing, but has praised the skill of Manny Pacquiao, the power of Victoriano Sosa and said Emanuel Augustus was his toughest opponent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Floyd Mayweather has considered whether there was a single opponent who came even remotely close to handing him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-941537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}