When I arrived in Atlantic City, checking into my hotel in Atlantic City, one of the first things I noticed in the lobby was a local newspaper's headline which read "Fight Of The Decade," underneath it was a computer aided picture of Arturo Gatti (39-7, 30 KO's) and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (34-0, 23 KO's) facing off in the ring. The Gatti-Mayweather clash was highly anticipated, and it turned out to be a completely one sided affair; the next headline maybe should have read "Performance Of The Decade."

While everyone has either seen or at least read a review of the fight by now, something significant did take place last Saturday evening at the Boardwalk Hall even though the fight was as lopsided as can be. Myself, amongst the capacity crowd, saw a virtuoso performance by who, I realized, is simply the top Pound-For-Pound fighter in the world today. For the last couple years I have reserved that honor, in my my own humble opinion, for Kostya Tszyu. But since Tszyu's derailment last month at the hands of new Super Lightweight king Ricky Hatton, I had left the top spot vacant in my own personal ranking system. While Hatton proved to certainly be a great fighter, it was apparent to me that Tszyu was no longer in his prime.

Many people's top Pound-For-Pound dog is Bernard Hopkins, a very respectable selection. While Hopkins has dominated the Middleweight division for nearly ten years now, making an astounding twenty title defenses in process, he lacks the special something that is needed to make him the best fighter in the world in my book. And dominating in one weight class simply is not as impressive as dominating multiple weight classes. Not that a great fighter, such as Hopkins, needs to be flashy to be considered great because he certainly does not, but the best fighter in the whole world needs to be a near super human talent level in my book. Hopkins does not have that, he is a hard working, blue collar guy and while he is immensely talented he does not give you that out of this world feel. I found that special fighter while sitting in the stands of the Boardwalk Hall last Saturday.

It's not that I have never seen Floyd Mayweather fight before, because I have been observing Mayweather for about seven years now, but he put on a performance like none other Saturday. Surely Mayweather has defeated great fighters before, most notably multiple time World Champions Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, defeating the later twice officially and once in my book, handily though I might add, but I believed Gatti was the most dangerous fighter Mayweather had yet to face. Not that Gatti is a great fighter, because the cult hero really is not any better than very good, but I viewed him as very dangerous because of a distinctive size advantage, devastating punching power and a no-quit attitude. What ensued was one of the most colossal beatings I have ever witnessed in a World Championship fight and possibly one of the most lopsided, challenger dominated fights you will see in a long time.

Mayweather had never fought an opponent of this caliber at this weight class and he backed up all his talk by completely dismantled the defending Champion, in the process displaying the out of this world talent that only comes along once in a long time. He was very hard to hit,  scored at will and walked the ring as he pleased. It was a virtuoso performance by the greatest fighter in the world. In addition to the dazzling performance, this is the third weight class Mayweather has won a world title in, remaining undefeated along the way.

There are other top notch fighters  certainly deserving of top Pound-For-Pound recognition, such as Erik Morales, Diego Corrales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Ronald "Winky" Wright and Manny Pacquiao to mention a few. While being successful in multiple divisions, all of the fighters have losses on their records and they do not possess Mayweather's skills. Floyd Mayweather Jr.  showed he has no equal to the capacity crowd at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Saturday night.

6-28-2005

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