Floyd Mayweather's Legacy as All-Time Great Is Complete After Manny Pacquiao Win

As the boos rained down from a star-studded crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather stood on the ring ropes, arms folded across his chest. He didn't look relieved, surprised or the least bit chagrined after a series of public relations disasters and a lifetime of doubters eating away at his every accomplishment.

He looked, as he had 47 times before, triumphant.

Despite a half-hearted protest from opponent Manny Pacquiao and his legion of fans, or a rumored right shoulder injury, there was no questioning what had just occurred. In 36 minutes Mayweather answered, if not every lingering question about his Hall-of-Fame career, the most important one. He is the best fighter of his generation.

Pacquiao, his vanquished foe, was the other king of modern boxing. Together they had dominated the sport, athletically and financially, walking side-by-side into history. They had beaten the same collection of top-notch fighters throughout their careers, men like Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley.

Here, in the final lap of both men's legendary careers, Floyd pulled ahead to stay, leaving Pacquiao in a distant second place.

"He's a hell of a fighter," Mayweather told announcer Jim Gray after the fight, choosing a humility that comes easily after such an easy victory. "I take my hat off to Manny Pacquiao."

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

For Mayweather, it was a victory that filled in the only hole on his resume—Pacquiao—while also making clear the gap between him and everyone else is dramatic. He is, without question, the best boxer of the pay television era.

What's left now, in a sport that cherishes its history, is to compare Mayweather with the other legendary pugilists who have come before him, many of them preserved only in dusty books and aging black-and-white film clips. In Mayweather's mind, he belongs in a class with the Mount Rushmore of boxers—men like Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

Others, citing his lack of competition and sporadic activity, put him on a lower tier, among the 25 or 50 best of all-time but not the top 10. Either way, his win over Pacquiao places him squarely in the conversation. That's pretty special. 

Because of his long-standing role as a villain on reality television (not to mention his real life run-ins with the law) there will always be minor nitpicking about what Floyd could have or should have done. Could Floyd have fought at middleweight? Should Floyd have faced Antonio Margarito or Kostya Tsyzu? Did Floyd only face men past their prime?

The answer to all those questions is a resounding yes. These are little things, of course. But when stacking Mayweather up against the all-time greats, little things can resonate in a big way. 

While there's no debating that he beat many great fighters, there's likewise no denying that he spent his physical prime fighting journeymen like Sharmba Mitchell, Henry Bruseles and Carlos Baldomir instead of the top talents that were salivating for a shot.

That those names appear on Mayweather's list of opponents instead of Margarito or a younger Mosley and a prime Pacquiao doesn't eliminate Floyd from the ranks of the elites. It just means he could have ascended even further with a few different choices.

There's no way, at this point, to have a completely objective conversation about Mayweather. The battle lines have been dug deep and the rancor is too fresh to forget completely. Even this article, despite placing Mayweather in the same class as the best fighters to ever step into a ring, will be seen by some as a dismissal of his very real accomplishments.

Ultimately, when discussing these kinds of rankings, words are mere wind. Mayweather has beaten everyone who ever stood across the ring from him, including the great Manny Pacquiao. After the final fight of his contract, he intends to leave the sport at 49-0, a record matched only by heavyweight great Rocky Marciano.

In a sport that's very much a zero-sum game, that's pretty much all anyone can ask.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.