Boxing

Roy Jones Claims Floyd Mayweather's Career Was Eclipsed By Manny Pacquiao

Roy Jones Jr. made scathing comments about Floyd Mayweather's boxing career in a recent interview.
Grant Young|
IMAGO / Pressefoto Baumann

During a June 17 appearance on the All The Smoke Fight podcast, boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. claimed that a prime Sugar Ray Leonard would have beaten a prime Floyd Mayweather.

"People always say, 'Floyd would have beat Sugar'. No, baby, Floyd is not nearly as mean as Sugar was," Jones Jr. said. "Sugar is a dog. Just because his name is Sugar don't mean nothing. Sugar is a dog. People don't give him enough credit for that."

He then added, "For me, I like Floyd, and Floyd was cool. But it's like, it's gonna be hard for me to go take it and beat Sugar. They'd have to do something different, that's for sure. If [Floyd] did something different, he probably has a chance. Just the way he's been doing with normal people, what I saw in his prime, that's not gonna work with Sugar. Sugar got a third element [heart] right there."

Floyd Mayweather's Wordless Troll Response to Roy Jones Jr.

Former boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. sits court side during a November 6, 2023 game
Nov 6, 2023; Miami, Florida, USA; Former boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. sits court side during the second half between the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers at Kaseya Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images | Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

While Floyd Mayweather didn't offer a direct response to what Roy Jones Jr. said, he posted four videos to his Instagram story on July 6 of him watching all the times Jones Jr. got knocked out in his professional boxing career.

There's no question that this was extremely upsetting for Jones Jr., as he has since put Mayweather on blast several times. And the most recent of these arrived during an August 12 interview with Manouk Akopyan of Ring Magazine.

“It was low class for him to post clips of me losing,” Jones said in the interview. “If I wanted to be messing with him, I could have done the same thing he did and got a book to start reading. Then what is he going to say? He did it because I said I would bet my life that Floyd would not beat a prime Sugar Ray Leonard."

He later added, “[Mayweather] struggled with an old Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather's dad said he lost that fight. Then they say Floyd beat so many world champions. Most were not world champions at the time, they were ex-world champions... Canelo Alvarez was young, and he fought Manny Pacquiao after he was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez. He didn't fight Terence Crawford.

“Pacquiao fought everyone who was at his level. In my humble opinion, it's almost safe to say that Pacquiao had a better career than Mayweather had," Jones continued.

"He didn't make the money Mayweather made, but he fought the fights that were supposed to be fought, when it was time to fight them. He didn't wait around."

Perhaps these comments may entice Mayweather to comment publicly.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.