On September 3, ESPN released an article that ranked the top 25 boxers of this century. At the top of the list was legendary boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather, who finished his career with an undefeated 50-0 record (with 27 KOs), amassed a staggering 15 major world championships across five weight classes, and won a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics. He also defeated several other fighters who were included on ESPN’s list.
One of these is Manny Pacquiao, who ESPN placed right behind Mayweather at No. 2. The reason why this made sense to many was that Mayweather beat Pacquiao in 2015, in what many consider to be the fight of this century.
However, pound-for-pound rankings are subjective, and there’s a clear case to be made that Pacquiao still deserves the nod over Mayweather, if only because Pacquiao was a physically smaller fighter than Mayweather (and many feel like pound-for-pound should assess the best boxer if all entries were the exact same size).
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This is the stance that longtime boxing commentator Max Kellerman took when reviewing ESPN’s rankings during a September 10 episode of Inside The Ring.
“I have one major bone to pick with this list: Floyd Mayweather beat Manny Pacquiao, it’s true. Floyd is one of the top-10 greatest pound-for-pound fighters who ever lived, tough to argue otherwise. But pound-for-pound, he can’t be above Manny Pacquiao!” Kellerman said.
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“Manny Pacquiao was a flyweight champion! Not that he turned pro at flyweight. He was good enough as a pro at flyweight to be the lineal champion, the real champion. Now, he didn’t win titles at every division. He skipped some of these,” Kellerman said before naming all the divisions Pacquiao dominated in during his career.
He then added, “And he laid waste to these divisions! He fought great fighters; he never ducked anybody. “Pacquiao, to me, other than Sugar Ray Robinson… Pacquiao is the greatest pound-for-pound fighter who ever lived. I can’t put Floyd above him!”
Ryan Garcia also agreed with Kellerman on this take, saying that he has always had Pacquiao above Floyd.
It will be interesting to see what the general reaction to Kellerman’s comments would be, if only because Mayweather’s undefeated record might suggest that somebody with eight losses and three draws should not be placed above him in a pound-for-pound ranking.
But Kellerman doesn’t seem to care about this.
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