Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a left jab against Robert Guerrero in the fifth round during their WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las
Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a left jab against Robert Guerrero in the fifth round during their WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

LAS VEGAS -- After Floyd Mayweather Jr. dispatched another overmatched opponent Saturday night, in a welterweight title fight less strenuous than many of his sparring sessions, the debate about his place in boxing history resumed.

To the supporters who lined the walls at a news conference after he won in a unanimous decision, there was nothing left to argue. They clapped and hollered and showered Mayweather with praise. "That's right, champ!" "You tell 'em, champ!" "You the best, champ!"

But to boxing insiders and more casual sports fans, Mayweather's legacy, like his life, is not that simple. There remains a baseline contradiction from which he cannot escape: When it comes to competition faced and opponents chosen, the boxer who has not yet lost cannot win.

Spread the blame around on that one. Blame Mayweather, his management team and the promotional companies he has worked with. Blame the era in which he has fought. And blame the critics who refuse, mistakenly, to give Mayweather the credit he deserves.

As the news conference unfolded in typical only-in-boxing fashion -- with a scuffle in the back, fans posed as journalists lobbing compliments disguised as questions, and Floyd Mayweather Sr. speaking in some combination of English and gibberish -- Stephen Espinoza, the head of Showtime Sports, stood to the side.

He acknowledged how difficult it had become for many to compare Mayweather Jr. with other boxing greats, in large part because there is no obvious historical comparison.


Mayweather is the rare combination of subtle boxer and flamboyant personality, a tactical wizard inside the ring and a cocksure loudmouth outside it. He is undefeated and unapologetic.

That complicated, combustible mix takes some focus off his ring skills as his triumphs blend with legal run-ins, including a guilty plea to misdemeanor domestic violence and harassment that led to his spending more than two months in jail last summer. There is the Mayweather who flashes stacks of $100 bills, who compares his strip-club spending habits to a stimulus package. And there is Mayweather, master boxing craftsman.

"At this level, it's all about selling fights," he acknowledged again Saturday.

That, Espinoza said, is part of why Showtime signed Mayweather to an unprecedented contract, banking on a 36-year-old pugilist with a history of legal problems to the tune of $250 million if he fights six times over three years (an ambitious, perhaps unrealistic goal).

Espinoza said Showtime would like to portray Mayweather as more than the "Money" caricature he has created -- as an artist who paints with his fists. Espinoza heard the restless crowd boo Mayweather and Robert Guerrero, known as the Ghost, at times at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. He saw some fans depart before the fight ended. He acknowledged that the action had become monotonous.

He also argued, correctly, that those who found the fight boring had missed Mayweather's genius. Mayweather dipped under Guerrero's punches, slid around Guerrero's grasp, landed right-handed pot shots. It was clinical, surgical, efficient. It was artistic.

Ghost, busted.

Yet there were those afterward who argued that Mayweather ran from Guerrero. They argued that Mayweather picked another challenger he was certain he could beat. Mayweather cannot win that argument. His opponents are always too old or too green, too small or too slow. That is the perception, which conveniently leaves out or minimizes his superior athletic gifts.

One cannot defend the fact that Mayweather has not squared off against Manny Pacquiao -- the best boxers of a generation, often in the same weight class, on paths to greatness that never intersected. The rest of his career -- defensive fighter or not, knockouts or not, exciting fights or not -- should be more celebrated, and it would be, too, were Mayweather not so caustic and divisive.

"There is an underappreciation of him, and I don't quite get it," Espinoza said. "When he wins convincingly, people revise history and say he didn't fight a good opponent.

"He can't win for winning."

The news conference plowed onward. Mayweather climbed onto the stage in a purple sweatsuit, his hat adorned with "MAY DAY" in large gold block letters. He was asked if his opponents actually believed that they could beat him or if they were simply content to collect a seven-figure paycheck and parlay an expected loss into exposure. Victor Ortiz, for instance, went from being knocked out by Mayweather to appearing on "Dancing With the Stars."

Someone asked Mayweather how he compared with history's greatest boxers, with Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard and all the rest.

"I'm not here to match myself against them," Mayweather said, even though he had often engaged in that practice in recent years. "I'm here to fight the fighters of my era."

The question afterward, as always, was whom Mayweather should fight next. Among the names that surfaced -- Amir Khan, Devon Alexander, Danny Garcia, Ortiz again -- Canelo Alvarez was the most enticing, the closest thing to an opponent who could help produce a superfight. Mayweather declined to speculate, but he insisted he would fight again in September, which would be his shortest layoff between bouts in years.

Mayweather had turned back the clock against Guerrero. He looked younger. He absorbed far less punishment -- if any -- than in his most recent fights. He said this training camp was his best and credited his father for his return to defensive prominence.

Other boxers noticed.

"Easy money," Adrien Broner said. "He robbed a bank without a mask."

Peter Quillin said: "We're living in the Mayweather era. There's nobody like that."

A bodyguard placed nine belts on the table for the news conference, and each hit with a thud more impactful than anything that hit Mayweather on Saturday. He did not argue for his place in boxing history. He did not need to. At this rate, he will need to less and less.

"I've got five more fights, and I'm through with the sport," he said.

Eventually, Mayweather will retire, sooner rather than later, and all the flamboyance will fade. This will present another contradiction. The less Mayweather boasts, the more his in-ring exploits will speak for him.