Floyd Mayweather Jr: I am all-time great

MANILA, Philippines—Floyd  Mayweather Jr. just can’t wait for others to extol his achievement as a fighter.

The unbeaten loudmouth has declared himself an all-time great. And that, he said, is regardless of whether his much-awaited fight with pound-for-pound rival Manny Pacquiao would push through or not.

“I’m an all-time great, with or without Pacquiao,” Mayweather told Fred Strunk of Fighthype.com on Tuesday during the New York stop of the promotional tour of his May 5 showdown with Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas.

Mayweather, the World Boxing Council welterweight champion, continued to be hounded by Pacquiao’s shadow wherever he goes.

Most questions centered on his seeming reluctance to tangle with the eight-division world champion Filipino, now the World Boxing Organization welterweight titlist, even if both of them could earn at least $50 million from the fight.

The megabuck bout could have pushed through in 2010 if not for Mayweather’s demand for Olympic-style blood testing.

Attempts to revive negotiations for the fight last year fizzled out due to Mayweather’s insistence on the dope-testing protocol.

There was a glimmer of hope last month, though, after Mayweather called out Pacquiao and offered the Fighter of the Decade $40 million but without any share in the pay-per-view revenues.

Pacquiao, who said he would agree to all of Mayweather’s drug test demands, declined and countered with a 45-45 split with the remaining 10 percent.