Boxing

Roy Jones Jr Names The Fighter He Believes Would Have Beaten Floyd Mayweather

Roy Jones Jr names the fighter Floyd Mayweather wouldn't have beaten.

Apratim Banerjee

IMAGO / Icon Sportswire

During his professional career, Floyd Mayweather defeated every man put in front of him. He amassed a perfect 50-0-0 record in the sport, conquering names like Shane Mosley, Manny Pacquiao, Arturo Gatti, Oscar De La Hoya, and more.

He is arguably the best defensive boxer of all time as apart from Mosley, nobody ever significantly hurt him. It's hard to back any boxer in history to solve the puzzle. However, Roy Jones Jr thinks Mayweather wouldn't have beaten one legendary boxer.

He thinks a prime Sugar Ray Leonard would have been too ferocious for Mayweather to handle. Speaking to Andre Ward on All The Smoke Fight podcast, he said:

If you gonna let him move around you, he'll beat you. Because he's very explosive, very mean. People always say, 'Floyd would beat Sugar'. No baby, Floyd is not as mean as Sugar was. How he gonna keep him off him? Sugar is a dog. Just because his name is Sugar, it doesn't mean nothing.

Floyd Mayweather
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

Roy Jones Jr brought up Sugar Ray Leonard's wins against Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran, claiming Ray Leonard is under-appreciated. He added:

For me, I like Floyd and Floyd was cool, but it's like, it's gonna be hard. For me to go and beat Sugar, they would have had to do something different, that's for sure. If he 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 right there [heart].

He concluded:

We think Floyd got one, we don't know. We've never seen him challenged. We know Sugar's got one.

Sugar Ray Leonard retired with a record of 36-3-1 with 25 knockout wins. For many, he is one of the greatest boxers ever.

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Apratim Banerjee
APRATIM BANERJEE

Apratim is an experienced sports journalist and has covered Football, Boxing, MMA, and more for the past five years. He has worked for Sports Illustrated, Sportskeeda, EssentiallySports, and other publications. Apratim is currently pursuing an MSc. in Sport Marketing at Loughborough University London.