Floyd Mayweather isn't afraid

Floyd Mayweather might be one of the most detestable people in the sports world. He is transparently greedy, passively bigoted and worst of all, physically abusive. That last trait is more reprehensible because of what he is so good at. He may be the best pound for pound boxer ever, and he has never been afraid to prove it.

For the last half decade or so, Mayweather has been heavily criticized for his acceptance of fights like the one next month against UFC star Conor McGregor, or the delay before fighting Philippine superstar Manny Pacquiao, as they seem more like cash grabs and less like real tests of Mayweather's ability. No doubt that they were.

The early part of Floyd Mayweather's boxing career was tainted by controversy not of his own doing. Mayweather entered the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta as a Featherweight, fighting through American competition to qualify. He beat a pair of opponents from the former Soviet Union, and struggled against Cuban Lorenzo Aragon. I

The fact that Mayweather was the first American to beat a Cuban boxer in 20 years was lost by the fact that he could only claim bronze after falling to Bulgarian Serafim Todorov, in a fight that was marked by corruption and judicial inadequacy. The decision was, and still is heavily disputed.

Naturally disenfranchised with the amateur boxing landscape, Mayweather went professional, and was nearly unstoppable in a longer match setting. His defensive ability allowed him to wear down opponents and keep progressing towards championship belts. When he would win a belt, he would subsequently make a move up in weight class, fighting bigger opponents, often undersized.

Floyd Mayweather's progression up the weight classes continued until he decided to retire for the first time in 2007, more than a decade after his trip to the Olympics, without a professional loss to his name. His move up through the weight classes, without a loss, earned him the title of the greatest pound for pound boxer of all time. At his size, there was nothing left for him to prove.

After a short time out of boxing, he came back. This would begin a long period of Mayweather's career, which was marked by a handful of retirements and comebacks. Moe often than not, his return would be against a well known name in boxing, or a belt holder at some class or a well known name among boxing fans. Perhaps the retirements were a gambit to earn more money, because he started getting 10s of millions of dollars to come back and fight. He earned more than 30 million to come back to fight Canelo Alvarez, who was the light middleweight champion at that point.

In the last few years, Mayweather has been criticized for the matchups he has taken with Pacquiao and McGregor, as if the intimation is that Mayweather is scared of real competition, or is only in it for the money. Mayweather proved to the world that he was the best when he was in his prime. There really isn't anything left to prove. Floyd Mayweather has a great variety of character flaws and has done a many terrible things, but one criticism he does not deserve is that he is intimidated by other fighters, or didn't maximize his potential. He's a world class asshole, but he isn't a chicken.