Mayweather-Mosley: In Defense of the Artful Dodger

On Saturday night, Floyd Mayweather defeated Shane Mosley by way of unanimous decision. Despite taking two of the hardest punches he’s ever taken in his career, Mayweather’s defensive brilliance and unbelievable counterpunching propelled him to a decisive victory. But right after the fight, “legendary boxing broadcaster” Larry Merchant asked Mayweather if a fight with Manny Pacquiao was on the way.

The response was quite interesting.

"I take my hat off to Mosley," Mayweather said. "He took the blood and urine tests. If every fighter is clean then take the test. If Manny takes the blood and urine tests we can make the fight for the fans. If he doesn't, we don't have a fight. I want to be on an even playing field, that’s all I ask."

Larry Merchant then did what any respectable columnist would do. He waited for Mayweather to leave, and then badmouthed him.

“Floyd Mayweather is the Artful Dodger," Merchant said. "He dodges great competition the same way he dodges punches in the ring.”

The following is my response, not only to Larry Merchant, but to the entire community that governs and broadcasts boxing.

Your sport is going to have to change. And no matter how you feel about Floyd Mayweather, he is beyond a shadow of doubt the voice of reason in this situation.

The objective in the sport of boxing is to inflict the most physical damage to the opponent, and if you can’t inflict enough to render the opponent unconscious, a judging panel literally determines who damaged the other person more. How can this sport not have the most stringent blood testing policy in the world?

He might be a clown, but Mayweather is also the most competitive person on the planet. He wants to win. Instead, the boxing community (including myself in the beginning) interpreted Mayweather’s testing demands as a way of ducking out of the fight. But I urge you to keep in mind that Mayweather was going to fight whomever won last year’s Mosley v. Margarito fight. So, is it really a “dodge” if you take on Shane Mosley?

But even more fascinating to me is the fact that Shane Mosley is still the Welterweight Champion. That’s because Floyd Mayweather doesn’t fight for titles. If he does, he has to pay three percent of his fighter’s purse to the championship’s governing body.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I understand why the boxing world hates Floyd Mayweather, and it’s because Floyd Mayweather is bigger than the boxing world. He doesn’t need their championships, he doesn’t need their testing, and he doesn’t need their money. In fact, he doesn’t even need their promotion.

Floyd Mayweather is very easy to hate, like many legendary boxers are. But not only are Mayweather’s actions and requests reasonable, they are indicative of the direction that the boxing world needs to go. Boxers’ money shouldn’t have to go to dozens of different federations, and boxers shouldn’t be judged by opponent quality, unless all of the opponents are measured on the same scale.

The real Artful Dodgers are the ones that are dodging change in the sport. And no matter how bad Larry Merchant wants it to be, that Artful Dodger isn’t Floyd Mayweather.