Mayweather vs. Cotto: What a Defeat Would Mean for Money's Legacy

Floyd Mayweather Jr, should beat Miguel Cotto when the two square off at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 5th.

I could have said "will" in place of "should," but that would be an official prediction and it's a little too soon to offer up one of those. When the time comes, I presume I will predict a win for Money, however.

Because, like I said, he should win.

Mayweather should be able to beat Cotto for a variety of reasons. The simplest way I, or anyone else, can put it is this: Money is a better fighter than Cotto. Hands down. Cotto is a great fighter with an impressive resume, but Mayweather is one of the greatest fighters ever and arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet today.

We can say this about Cotto, though: He's not going to be a pushover. He's a year or two removed from his prime, but he's still a very good fighter and he's looked very good in each of his last three fights.

Cotto is good enough of a fighter to at least make one stop and consider the possibility that he'll beat Mayweather on May 5th, thus sending the boxing world into disarray.

A win would be huge for Cotto's legacy, no doubt about that. But the more interesting aspect of that eventuality is what the loss would mean for Money's own legacy.

There's one word that I think would best describe the damage a loss would do to Money's legacy. It would be devastating.

Money's legacy is a complicated thing, but right now it boils down to the "41 have tried, 41 have failed" mantra that he and his camp love to perpetuate. If Money wasn't undefeated, there wouldn't be such an awesome aura around his accomplishments in the ring. 

A loss would put Money's record in perspective. The complaint his critics have about his undefeated record is that he didn't have to defeat any truly challenging opponents in order to achieve it. The notion is that, throughout his career, Money has always found himself matched up against opponents he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was going to beat before he stepped into the ring.

The Cotto matchup is very much in line with this train of thought.

So, if Cotto beats Mayweather, one of the supposed inferior opponents will have won. Mayweather will have gotten his comeuppance.

If this fight were taking place, say, five years ago, the storyline would be all about Cotto's greatness and less about Floyd's sudden fall from grace. The exact opposite will be true in the event Mayweather loses. The story will be less about Cotto's victory, and more about Mayweather's defeat. What would it mean?

It would mean he's washed up, for one, which wouldn't be a huge surprise given his age and his infrequent presence in the ring in recent years. For two, the fact that he got beat by a boxer past his prime like Cotto would mean that Money's own prime wasn't as good as we all thought.

It will be obvious that he wasn't an excellent boxer taking on and beating all challengers. Rather, he was a very good boxer taking on and beating only inferior challengers.

Would Mayweather still have a place in boxing history? Of course he would. Even if he never fought another fight after losing to Cotto, a 42-1 career record would still be pretty damned impressive.

Mayweather is already too well entrenched as an all-time boxing great to suddenly be ditched from the conversation altogether.

He just wouldn't be in the discussion of the true elites the sport has ever known, names like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and, yes, Manny Pacquiao, just to name a few. A loss to Cotto would knock Mayweather pretty far down on the totem pole. The only way Money would be able to redeem himself would be by beating a truly great opponent.

Like, you know, Pac-Man.

Since that fight is never going to happen, Money had better beat Cotto if he wants his legacy as one of the all-time greats to remain secured.

Fortunately for him, he should win, thus rendering all these words obsolete.