Floyd Mayweather's 15 Most Asinine Quotes of All Time

Somewhere inside Floyd Mayweather’s head, you’d like to think there is a delete or stop button. That little voice telling him to "shut up" or "watch what you say before you say it." In the foreground of boxing for the last 10 years, we’ve found that apparently there isn’t. Why is Mayweather missing the filter most contemporary pro athletes have?

Before Mayweather utters something inane, which he frequently does, you can almost see the smoke coming out of his ears before an asinine statement spills out, gets picked up, and before you know it’s zapped to a million places in the real-time, social media world we live in today.

But before Facebook and Twitter became iconic icons attached to everything we currently do and see, Mayweather had a habit of saying idiotic things.

Here’s a potpourri, past and present, of Mayweather’s 15 most asinine quotes of all-time—in descending order:

15. “I don’t duck or dodge anybody,” which is actually a phrase Mayweather has said throughout his career, yet he’s come up with myriad excuses why he’s never got into the ring with Manny Pacquiao.

14. “Who has [Antonio] Margarito beaten to deserve a shot at me? Once he beat two or three big names then we’ll fight. Me and Margarito, we’re not fighting to prove to the boxing fans who the best is. Who is Margarito? He don’t bring s--- to the table,” Mayweather used this as an excuse for not fighting Margarito. Margarito at the time was a very viable opponent.

13. “I hate Bob Arum, he ain't s---; he’s nothing but a liar, he lies about everything,” an enraged Mayweather said after breaking with Top Rank and making the move to rap impresario James Prince as his promoter in 1999. This came after Mayweather said a year earlier, “I have the best promoter out there in Bob Arum. Bob Arum is the greatest promoter in history. I love Bob Arum. I love HBO.”

12. “My team calls all the shots out of the ring, I call them in the ring,” something Mayweather repeated to me a number of times, though it’s far from the truth. Money May calls the shots. When he broke away from Bob Arum, he made the decision. When he decided to break away from his father, Floyd Sr., it was his call. Mayweather is king of the “Money Team,” his traveling entourage.

11. “Absolutely not. I took the plea. Sometimes they put us in a no-win situation. I had no choice, but I don't worry about going to jail. Better men than me have been there. I'm pretty sure Martin Luther King's been there, and Malcolm X. I have taken the good with the good so I'll accept the bad with the bad," Floyd Mayweather to Georgetown sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson on HBO’s Speaking Out Special on April 21.

10. “I’m not in the game for just the money, I’m in the game to be a legend. And to give the fans and media all around the world exciting fights,” Mayweather said prior to fighting Carlos Baldomir in November 2006 for the WBC welterweight world championship. Then Money May put on a boxing display in which, if he put his foot on the gas, would have stopped Baldomir at any time.

9. “[Shane] Mosley will never fight me. I love to fight him. But you know he don’t want a dosage of truth,” Mayweather said in 2007. The fact is, they did fight, and Mayweather won in dominating fashion. But not before Mosley took the boxing world’s breath away by jolting Mayweather in the second round, teetering for a moment.

8. “They talk about Kelly Pavlik, a white fighter, like he’s the second coming. Or they go crazy over Manny Pacquiao. But I’m a black fighter. Is it racial? Absolutely. They praise white fighters, they praise Hispanic fighters, whatever. But black fighters, they never praise,” Mayweather said about HBO boxing commentators in July 2008.

7. “You know me. I’m running my mouth a lot, and I’m looking for a guy to shut me up. If you don’t shut me up, I’m going to keep running my mouth. Nobody can beat me. There is no way to beat me,” Mayweather has stated numerous times.

6. “I’ll beat the s--- out of Manny Pacquiao. He knows that,” Mayweather has said, but we may never know because something always seems to get in the way of this ever happening: Olympic-style drug testing, supposed negotiations that took place (which Mayweather’s people said didn’t take place) and Mayweather’s most recent proposal of a 60-40 split in favor of him.

5. “You know what I’m going to do, because you never give me a fair shake, so I’m going to let you talk to Victory Ortiz; I’m through put someone else up here and let them give me an interview. You never give me a fair shake. HBO needs to fire you because you don’t know s--- about boxing; you ain’t s---; you’re not s---,” Mayweather said to HBO commentator Larry Merchant during the post-fight interview after knocking out Victory Ortiz.

4. “I’m in the same shoes as Ali. They hate me when I’m at the top, but once my career is over, they’re going to miss me,” Mayweather told Dyson in the HBO Speak Out Special. Really? The same shoes as Ali? Mayweather protested for being drafted into an unjust war that threatened his life and livelihood during a turbulent racial climate when whites and blacks, in some parts of the south, couldn’t walk on the same sidewalk together? Really?

3. “That’s a slave contract,” Mayweather told then-HBO head Lou DiBella in October 1999, refusing to sign a contract for seven-fight, $12.5-million deal. Mayweather also told me when I was doing a story for Ring Magazine, “Why would I sign a contract like that. It’s slave wages.”

2. “We’re going to cook that little yellow chump…Once I kick the midget ass, I don’t want you all to jump on my d---. So you all better get on the bandwagon now...Once I stomp the midget, I’ll make that mother f----- make me a sushi roll and cook me some rice…We’re going to cook him with some cats and dogs,” a Mayweather clarion public moment in September 2010, when he went on a Manny Pacquiao-rant spewing into the camera.

1. “Ali was a great fighter, but I’m better. [Sugar Ray] Robinson was a great fighter, but I’m better,” Mayweather told HBO’s cameras on 24/7 in building the hype machine for the May 1, 2010 Mayweather-Shane Mosley fight.

While Mayweather is the greatest fighter of this generation, this generation pales far in comparison to when Ali and Robinson fought. The talent pools of those eras were much, much deeper than they are now. Ali prevailed in the greatest era of the heavyweight division, and Robinson was in with killers like Henry Armstrong, Jake LaMotta, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio and Kid Gavilan.

Ali was able to get away with proclaiming himself as “The greatest of all-time,” rolling his eyes in his animated way and soliciting laughter. Sure, Ali believed it, but he also had a genuine, jovial way in expressing it, far different than the arrogant self-infatuating manner Mayweather does.