By Geno McGahee
This Saturday, Floyd Mayweather, JR., 50-0, 27 KO’s, will take the boxing fans to the circus with a bout against Logan Paul, 0-1, in an 8 round exhibition. Paul is much larger than Floyd, with a six inch height advantage, a four inch reach advantage, and an expected 30 pound weight advantage going into the fight. Those that are anticipating Floyd having some issues point to these edges along with the fact that he’s facing somebody much younger, but will any of that mean anything going into Saturday night?
Floyd’s career has been an amazing one and his contention of being the best ever isn’t an outrageous claim. He has beaten so many of the biggest names in the game, even if many of them weren’t in their prime, including Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto, but he did dominate Canelo Alvarez, a man that many see as the best thing going today. Floyd is a master boxer and a gym rat and his age of 44 isn’t exactly a huge concern. Floyd’s style is a good style to have if you are fighting into your later years as a boxer. Bernard Hopkins proved that.
Floyd wrapped his career up, realistically, in 2015, with a dominant decision win over Andre Berto. He came back in 2017 against UFC fighter, Conor McGregor, and scored a 10 round KO in a tougher than expected fight. There’s some debate as to what condition Floyd was in and whether or not he took it easy on McGregor to make it more competitive and set up a rematch where he could make another 100 million.
Despite constant retirement claims, Floyd would return again against the much smaller Japanese fighter, Tenshin Nasukawa, in 2018 and it would be a first round KO for Mayweather, JR. It was easy money for Floyd and now he’s looking to cash in again without much trouble against YouTube sensation turned boxer, Logan Paul.
The 26-year-old fighter has had one professional fight against another YouTuber, KSI, and he would lose a decision. This is the only information that we can go on as we analyze this upcoming unusual matchup.
The immediate noticeable thing is that Paul kept his hands low and was open for an overhand right from KSI and many of them landed. There seemed to be hesitation from Paul, maybe overwhelmed with the moment and being in front of a large crowd on that stage. In the third round, a right to the top of the head would put Logan down. He would rebound with a couple of uppercuts that would put KSI down.
Paul would do better down the stretch and actually jab pretty well against the spent opponent in front of him and seemed to do enough to win the fight, but came up short on the cards. That fight was in November of 2019 and Paul has insisted that he has taken the sport very seriously and is training hard with his trainer, Milton Lacroix, for this match. Lacroix has stated that he expects Paul to win and trains all his fighters to win fights. Lacroix has trained former heavyweight champion, Shannon Briggs. Briggs was in Logan’s corner for the KSI bout.
At first, I suspected that this would be a relatively friendly exhibition where Floyd would put on a show, carry Logan for a bit and then put him out late, but I don’t think that’s the plan now. Two things are turning this fight into bad news for Logan Paul. Jake Paul, Logan’s brother, yanked the hat off of Floyd’s head and has been taunting him with regularity. The other thing and more important thing was a comment by Logan. At a promotional event, with Floyd and Logan on stage, Mayweather commented about Japan, a reference to Logan showing a dead body on his Vlog. It was big news. Logan returned with a comment about what Floyd “did to his wife,” a reference to the domestic violence that Floyd was accused of and locked up for. This fun fight has become personal which isn’t good for Paul.
The exhibition is set for 8 rounds and Floyd will most likely be uncharacteristically aggressive, looking for the overhand right that KSI was landing. He also knows that fighting his usual game will give Logan Paul moments where his reach will matter. I get the feeling that Floyd doesn’t want to give Paul anything and will be in seek and destroy mode from the opening bell and has Paul learned enough to survive that. The most likely answer to that is no.
PREDICTION
Floyd Mayweather, JR., will overcome the weight advantage and every other advantage with his skill and experience. On paper, Logan Paul does not belong in the ring with Floyd. In the ring, we will probably discover verification of that fact as he struggles to find the mark and gets hit too often. From the opening bell, look for the straight right and a looping right hook to put Paul into a shell. From that point on, Paul will try to stay away and make it to that final bell, but Floyd will not allow it. He will pin Paul against the ropes and unload on the body and head. Paul will get stopped by the fifth round, most likely with body shots as he desperately tries to defend the head shots that kept coming in. Paul’s only shot is a mixture of luck and Floyd turning into an old man overnight.
Floyd Mayweather JR KO-5 Logan Paul
