Mayweather on Pacquiao: "Put him in front of me, I'll beat him"

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Mayweather on Pacquiao: "Put him in front of me, I'll beat him"

A consistent pattern is starting to develop when it comes to talks about a fight between Pound-for-Pound claimants Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

The last two weeks, Mayweather has started to answer questions about Pacquiao and sounded like he is now open to that proposed bout.

In an interview with fight reporter Chris Robinson, Mayweather, in a rare statement, finally considered Pacquiao as a possible opponent for his May 3 date with Showtime.

“My focus is May 3rd. I don’t know who my opponent will be. If it’s Pacquiao, it’s Pacquiao. If it’s Amir Khan, it’s Amir Khan. For 17 years they’ve been putting guys in front of me, and I’ve been beating them. Come May they’ll put a guy in front of me, I’ll go to training camp, work hard, and the results will be the same,” said Mayweather.

Just last week in a video by fighthype.com posted on Youtube, Mayweather mentioned Pacquiao’s name during a conversation regarding the Filipino’s latest rankings.

The World Boxing Council (WBC) installed Pacquiao as the mandatory challenger to their welterweight champion who happens to be Mayweather.

“Like what I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, you put him in front of me, I’ll beat him. I realized this, he’s mandatory, he can have the belt. A belt doesn’t make me,” said Mayweather.

While he acknowledges the existence of these alphabet organizations, Mayweather said he does not need belts to cement his claim as a world champion.

“I don’t want to be rude with any organization. Floyd Mayweather is not just bigger than a world title. Floyd Mayweather is at a level where he can come out with his own championship belt,” said Mayweather.

As expected, Mayweather ripped Pacquiao’s latest performance during the video interview.

“So the guy, Manny Pacquiao was at welterweight, he lost to Timothy Bradley. No matter how you cut it, slice it away, he lost to Timothy Bradley. He got knocked out by (Juan Manuel) Marquez. He come back, he go the distance with a lightweight, now all of a sudden he’s the mandatory for my title,” said Mayweather.

That lightweight fighter Mayweather was referring to is Brandon Rios, the former WBO 135-lb champion who dropped a one-sided 12-round decision in their welterweight match held last month in Macau.

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