The ‘Pretty Boy’ of boxing arena, Floyd Mayweather, achieved the unfathomable as he beat Andre Berto in a unanimous decision to reach the impeccable 49-0 record, shared with the heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano who set the same record in 1956.
Unarguably the best boxer of his generation and one of the best all-time fighters in the history of the sport, Mayweather turned professional in October 1996 and 19 years later remains undefeated in 5 weight categories – Super Featherweight, Lightweight, Light Welterweight, Welterweight and Light Middleweight.
The undefeated quintuple champion announced his retirement from professional boxing as soon as matching Marciano’s record of 49-0 in his last match against Berto in September 2015. The boxing champ has featured and topped the Forbes and Sports Illustrated’s list of highest-paid athletes in the world in 2012, 2013, and then again in Forbes list of 2014 and 2015.
Pretty Boy’s formative years and boxing style
Mayweather was named pretty boy by his teammates because of relatively lesser scars on his face owing to the defensive technique taught by his uncle and father, the same technique used by them in their boxing careers. He uses an old-school boxing technique called the ‘Shoulder Roll’ in which the lead shoulder is lifted high enough to cover the chin, cheek, and eye, with the left hand covering the abdomen and right hand lifted slightly higher than usual to block punches and left hooks.
This defensive technique gave Mayweather the much-needed leverage for him to win the fights even when cornered, owing to his swift feet movement and innate ability to sense the ring space he was able to turn the odds his way.
Mayweather scores a technical knockout on Pro debut and clinches his first title two years later
Mayweather’s debut match in the Super Featherweight category on 11 October 1996 against a fellow debutant Roberto Apodaca gave the world a glimpse of the upcoming era. He won the match in the second round on a TKO. For the coming two years, he won 13 of his 18 fights by a knockout.
Two years later, at the age of 21, he became the first 1996 US olympian to win a world title Mayweather after defeating Genaro Hernandez for the WBC Super Featherweight title.
For the next seven years, till 2005, Mayweather successfully defended his titles in two weight categories – SuperFeatherweight and Lightweight, winning all 33 of his fights, 20 via a knockdown.
The beginning of Mayweather’s pay-per-view bouts
It was June 25, 2005, and Pretty Boy’s grand day had arrived as his first pay-per-view bout was set in Atlantic City against Arturo Gatti and grossed 365,000 buys. Mayweather left no stone unturned in bashing his opponent in the press, calling him a ‘bum’, ‘paper champion’ and ‘club fighter’ among other things.
The two-division champion outclassed Gatti starting from the first round onwards, sending him on the canvas with a left hook and scoring a knockdown. The next five rounds were no different and after landing only 41 against the Floyd’s 168, Gatti’s trainer Buddy McGirt stopped the fight crowning Mayweather with his third championship – the light welterweight title.
Moving up a weight category to Welterweight
In the coming months, Mayweather gained a few more pounds and moved to welterweight category and fought his first non-title bout against Sharmba Mitchell, knocking him down in the sixth round to win his first fight of this weight category.
A 35-0 Floyd faced his next opponent IBF Welterweight champion Zab Judah and dominated him until the tenth round when a fight broke out between both the fighters’ camp. Post police intervention, the fight resumed and Floyd cruised through the next two rounds and won in a unanimous decision (116-112, 117-111 and 119-109).
Already tasted success in three other divisions, Mayweather had already set his sight on the next prize and in November same year he was fixed up with the reigning WBC welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir, who hadn’t lost a fight in the last eight years. The fight recorded 325,000 pay-per-view buys with the WBC, IBF and The Ring Welterweight championships on the line.
Mayweather dominated all the 12 rounds and won in a lop-sided unanimous decision -- with two judges giving him all the 12 rounds and third one giving him 10 -- achieving a then-career-high $8 million earning from the fight, which also had $16.3 million in television revenue.
The famed match with six-division champion Oscar De La Hoya
In a fight titled ‘The World Awaits’, three-division champion Mayweather was set to fight six-division winner Oscar De La Hoya in May 2007 at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas. As the dates for the highly anticipated match closed in, the pay-per-view buys broke the ceiling with a record number of 2.4 million buys, breaking Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield’s record of a 1.95 million sellout.
Mayweather won the WBC middleweight title via a split decision in 12 rounds, scoring 116-112 and 115-113 in his favour and 115-113 in De La Hoya's. Computerised stats showed that Mayweather punched De La Hoya 207 times against his 122 and power-punched him 134 times against the latter's 82.
Return to the Welterweight category
Few months after winning the fight and title from De La Hoya, Mayweather (38-0) returned to the welterweight category and set up a fight with The Ring light welterweight champion ‘Hitman’ Ricky Hatton (43-0), which was supposed to be one of the biggest fights of the decade between two undefeated champions and sold-out close to a million (925,000) pay-per-view buys.
Mayweather sent damaging punches Hatton’s way, with a left hook knocking him down and Pretty Boy winning the fight on a technical knockout in the 10th round. After the fight, in June 2008, Mayweather announced his retirement from professional boxing and started focussing more on his promotional company Mayweather promotions.
Mayweather's comeback after 21 months into retirement
After a 21-month-hiatus, Mayweather announced his return to professional boxing and challenged The Ring lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez and the best in Mexico, on his coming out of retirement match. The return to the ring match for Mayweather recorded 1.1 million pay-per-view buys, making it one of the five (at the time, now sixth) non-heavyweight fights to cross the 1 million mark.
The build-up to the fight was similar to the one against Oscar De La Hoya with a four-installment prelude focussing on each of the fighters training for the big day named ‘Numero Uno’. Owing to his ‘shoulder roll’ defence, Mayweather easily won the fight in a unanimous decision with Marquez only able to land 70 of his total 583 punches as against 290 of 490 punches from the winner.
His next fight, a non-title match, came against Shane Mosley in May 2010, another PPV which garnered buys on the upwards of 1.5 million, set at the MGM Grand Arena and titled ‘Who R U Picking?’. Both the champions mutually agreed to go through Olympic-style drug testing, making this the first fight in the USA to be subjected to such conditions.
Mosley was no match for the powerful combos of jabs and hooks and Mayweather’s quick defence technique, who dominated the match, winning a unanimous decision (119-109, 119-109, 118-110).
The infamous victory over Ortiz
A year later, Mayweather challenged the reigning WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz for his title and their fight was scheduled for September 2011 at the MGM Grand billed as ‘Star Power’ and was bought out by 1.5 million people on pay-per-view.
Dubbed as one of the most entertaining title challenges mounted up by Mayweather, who dominated the fight in the first three rounds, only to be cornered in the fourth round by Ortiz who looked in control for the moment but committed a blatant foul when he headbutted his challenger and the referee called a timeout.
In an attempt to atone for the foul, Ortiz apologetically kissed and hugged a defiant Mayweather, who reciprocated half-heartedly, and as soon as the referee looked away as the fighters separated, Ortiz received a bombing left hook which stunned him to the point he was unable to pull up his defenses in time for Floyd’s next jab to his face, which dropped Ortiz to the canvas as Mayweather added a title to his belt, winning on a knockout and setting his bout record at 42-0.
Return to Light Middleweight and mandatory title defence
Mayweather returned to fight The Ring no.1 light middleweight Miguel Cotto for the Light Middleweight title in November 2011 and won the title after defeating his challenger in a unanimous decision in a PPV match with 1.6 million buys.
This became the second-highest viewed non-heavyweight fight after Mayweather v/s De La Hoya.
After another year and a half of absence due to a jail term, Mayweather returned to the ring to face WBC’s mandatory welterweight challenger Robert Guerrero in a fight titled ‘May Day’ which grossed over a million PPV buys. All three scorecards showed a clear winner at 117-111 and Mayweather retained the title alongwith winning the vacant The Ring Welterweight title.
Mayweather returned to light middleweight category for his next match against the WBC Super Welterweight champion Saul Alvarez in September 2013 titled ‘The One’, with 2.2 million PPV buys. Although both the champions fought on equal fronts, Mayweather won the match in a mixed decision, and the fight was called a close one which could’ve turned either way. All the scorecards were in favour for Mayweather except one, which tied both of their scores (114-114, 116-112, 117-111).
The fight ended up being the most profitable boxing match in the history, with Mayweather earning $41.5 million
In the year 2014, Mayweather featured in two bouts against Marcos Maidana, both grossing close to a million PPV buys. The first bout named ‘The Moment’ saw both the former’s WBC welterweight and the latter’s WBA Super welterweight title at stake. Maidana gave Mayweather a close fight with almost an even scoring, but the latter won in a majority decision.
Many pundits were of the view that this was the closest Mayweather had come to lose a fight.
In the second bout, which was laced with controversy as Maidana bit Floyd’s finger, Mayweather’s experience outclassed Maidana’s bulldog approach as the champion successfully retained all the titles and won the match in a unanimous decision (116-111, 116-111, 115-112).
The fight against Pacquiao and setting the impeccable 49-0 record in the final year of his career
After having broken negotiations a number of times since 2009, the much-awaited fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather was scheduled for May 2, 2015, at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas and was bought by a record-breaking $4.4 million households on pay-per-view, titled ‘Fight of the Century’, with its revenue estimated to be around $400 million
Contrary to the hype, the fight ended up being a lopsided one with Mayweather winning with a clear difference on the scorecards in a unanimous decision with the three scorecards reading 116-112, 116-112 and 118-110 in Floyd’s favour. As a consequence of a persistent arm injury, Pacquiao was slow and was consistently missing out on punches, whereas Mayweather capitalised on the fact and jabbed his way through the match and won the WBO Welterweight title though he was stripped of it by the WBO two months later. Floyd’s earning at the end of the match were estimated at $200 million while Pacquiao received half of that amount.
Undefeated at 48-0, Mayweather was only one win away from equalling the legendary Rocky Marciano’s impeccable record of 49-0 and he came at par with that record after a win against Andre Berto in September 2015, shortly before announcing his retirement.
The fight titled ‘High Stakes’ recorded a relatively low PPV of half a million households and was a bit of a disappointment as Berto, a former Welterweight champion and way past his best years was chosen as the opponent in a match which made history. Many criticised Floyd on going too easy on himself and not choosing an opponent worthy of this honour.
Although he was being criticised of having slowed down a bit as compared to his yesteryears in light of the bouts going the complete 12 rounds as opposed to his earlier days when knockout was his way of life, Floyd Mayweather’s impeccable 49-0 record silenced most of his critics.
Nonetheless, Mayweather won the bout in a unanimous decision as he controlled the pace of the fight for a majority of the rounds. Though Berto tried to make a comeback in the middle rounds with an aggressive approach, it was matched Mayweather's taunting dodges and powerful return jabs.
Such an illustrious career spanning over a period of 19 years takes a lot of perseverance and hard work to end as a success and that too a success so sweet, setting an impenetrable record and etching Floyd Mayweather jr.'s name in the history and retiring in style.
Fun Fact: Mayweather appeared in a match with Big Show in Wrestlemania 24 after he turned on the giant when he tried choke slamming a jaded Rey Mysterio and Mayweather broke Big Show’s nose in the process. The boxing champion won the match for which he was paid $20 million.
