Floyd Mayweather Jr. Victorious, Apologetic

[Will]

WBC Super Welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. was victorious over Oscar De La Hoya in Saturday’s mega-pay-per-view fight in Las Vegas.

He was also humble in victory, apologizing to the UFC ownership group for comments he made during the past few weeks. Mayweather had stated any boxing champion could easily transition into MMA and become a champion.

That prompted UFC president Dana White to issue a challenge for Mayweather to fight UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk.

Unfortunately, it appears the bout won’t happen. Mayweather, after all, won’t be competing in MMA anytime soon.

From Fightnews.com:

“I apologize to the UFC, sometimes we say things that we shouldn’t have said and I’m man enough to admit that. I apologize to the Fertittas, Lorenzo and Dana White (UFC owners). I respect MMA fighters and what they do in the UFC. I have no plans of fighting in mixed martial arts.“

Hopefully now, this little tiff can be put to rest — though some told-time boxing analysts will never let it go.

Case in point: Jim Lampley of HBO Boxing.

From USA Today:

With mixed martial arts cutting into boxing’s appeal, HBO is negotiating to air some of that sport’s action. But after Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat Oscar De La Hoya in Saturday’s much-hyped HBO pay-per-view fight, HBO’s Jim Lampley suggested mixed martial arts fighters “are light years away from the skill level we saw in the ring tonight.” HBO will show the fight replay Saturday.

It’s no wonder the UFC has stated that Lampley (and cohort Larry Merchant) will, in no way, be associated with the UFC’s events on HBO.

In any manner, the sooner we can get past the idea of “MMA vs. boxing,” the better off we’ll be. It’s not an either-or proposition; people can like both. And besides, there’s no reason for the UFC and other MMA organizations to even care what the boxing world thinks. MMA long ago surpassed boxing as the combat sport of tomorrow.

[Vinnyspapa]

Is Lampley serious? Mayweathers performance wasnt that good. I like to watch both sports but any boxer will get beat by an MMA fighter. Boxers only learn how to punch and MMA fighters learn alot more than punching.

[Will]

I'm not that surprised by the comments, almost everyone in boxing is in denial about how far the 'sport" has fallen and how poor todays generation of boxers are.

[Just KC]

lol Poor? hardly. And fallen? haha

Mayweather is a boxing virtuoso. Arguably the greatest ever in the eyes of many, Many people put him up with the rank of the sugars, Ali's and Marciano. BUT There are more athletes these days due to technology and stuff like that. So todats boxers are the best of the best(except the heavyweights) case and point the boxers today surpass those of yesterday. So when you watch Floyd mayweather fight you are seeing the best BOXER ever.

And right now MMA is popular but boxing is still on top in a numbers standpoint. As is one fight obtained the largest live-gate numbers in history, the largest PPV buys in the history of ppvs. not to mention every hotel in vegas can hold about 20,000 people at the arena and all were filled to watch the fight via big screen. boxing matches in japan on average attract 6 million television views in japan and sell out arenas of 90,000 people.( no im not making this up true stats here) so ya Boxing will never die as long as the right people are put in the ring and with fights like

Gatti/Gomez
Judah/Cotto
Hatton/Castillo
Hopkins/Wright
Pacqiou/Valero
Spinks/Taylor
coming uup MMA better watch or we might see a decline in their numbers soon.

[Will]

One "dream" match between a guy no one outside of boxing knows and a guy who stopped caring about fighting years and years ago does not make up for a decade of crap fights and plummeting interest. Where does boxing go from here? Absolutely no where. UFC will put on a ppv every month this year that does a million buys and takes in 30 million in sales.

[Just KC]

Crappy fights? regardless of who is in the fight means nothing on how the fight was so your statement is completly irrelevant. And this decade gave us the most exciting triology in any sports in Gatti/Ward so ya..

[Will]

who ever refers to something as the greatest trilogy in any sport? That makes absolutely no sense. The only sports that could even have a trilogy would be boxing and MMA, every other sport has dozens, or hundreds, of matches against each other. Gatti/Ward was far from exciting, unless three straight fights which went 10 rounds and had to be decided by judges because neither one of them could beat the other is your idea of exciting. I'll take Ali or Tyson any day over the vanilla nobody's that cant knock anyone out to save their lives that the sport has been taken over by during the last decade.

[Just KC]

Have you ever even seen Gatti/Ward? far from exciting? it only got fight of the century award. You obviously havent seen it because you would have known that in each fight there was a knockdown after rounds of absolutly bettering the hell out of each other. But guess what both men had te heart of Lion's and would not accept defeat you they got up to give everybody what they want. And if you call Micky Ward going into a coma after the 1st fight not getting beaten up then there is something wrong with you. You claim you like to see toe-to-toe action well guess what this fights were 2 men with cast iron jaws slugging it for 10 rounds non-stop refusing to be the man that loses and goes 1st. You obviously don't know what your talking about here. And i have a clip of the best round from the fight of the century Just look at this not even bothering to block punches but just keep throwing them. SO tired they couldnt even tie each other up but just would not stop throwing flush power punches and NOT going down. Neddless to say but not one of the fights was for a championship.



I also have a clip or round 7 of Gatti/Ward 3 which earned fight of the year. In this fight Gatti broke his hand in the beggining of the fight.

[Will]

That was one of the poorest rounds of boxing that I have ever seen. There was very little actual skill shown and Gatti spent almost the entire round either eating soft shots from "glass hands" ward or trying to get away from the aforementioned weak shots. At one point he even appeared to be running away from him. It was like watching two guys in a bar in Alabama go at it to impress their cousin Daisy.

[Just KC]

Your making yourself look like a fool. If you like boxing matches you would have loved Mayweather/ De La Hoya. Your just another classic exapmple of bitch and moan about anything boxing does even though its great and UFC cant match it. These were fights, and fights to the finish. and eating soft shots!?!?!?!!?!?!?!? That comment has complelty any point you have ever made completly irrelevent seeing as you watch with biased closed minded views. Yes I guess now soft punches put both fighters in the hospital for weeks after all 3 fights. Also gatti running? averaging 70 punches a round is totally running. You claim you like UFC which are fights and hate boxing because they dont have ''exciting'' fights and since alot of fights are now boxing matches and people dont slug it out like that often now. you claim they are crappy fights. so therefore you would like fights which these were but then you say you want technique and skill which is what most fights are these days? I smell contradiction. pick a side already. Fights or technical fights? No matter what you pick you still will end up contradicting yourself.

And what is the UFC? that for sure isnt 2 guys trying to give their fans their money worth with an exciting fight.