Floyd Mayweather Jr. AP FILE PHOTO
Throughout his career, Floyd Mayweather Jr. not only threw his punches but he also ran his mouth.
Mayweather’s opponents were on the receiving end of his power punches and boxing’s best pieces of trash-talk.
Surprisingly, however, Mayweather was too quiet leading up to his welterweight unification fight against eight-division World Champion Manny Pacquiao.
In a report fro MLive.com, boxing’s greatest trash-talker said that all of his verbal abuse were “absolutely” for self-promotion.
“I’ve always thought that,” Mayweather said. “At first, it was like, one way or another, by communication or by my boxing skills, you will watch me, you will see me, I will be seen. But I’m in a position now I don’t have to do that.”
Mayweather going all quiet for a fight is a whole new Mayweather.
For his 2006 fight against Zab Judah, Mayweather said that his opponent has lost focus and was “worried because he’s not getting any money” because of tax issues.
Before fighting Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather gave the Golden Boy a platinum-level trash-talking and even stole his opponent’s food and luggage.
For his May 2 fight against Pacquiao at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Mayweather is a whole different man.
He even asked his father, Floyd Sr., to tone down the trash-talk against Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach.
“It was a lot to make this fight happen,” he said. “In the past, everyone was saying it was Floyd (who was blocking the Pacquiao fight). And my thing was this, if I didn’t have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all.
“That’s no different than in the past, like I look back at certain things, ‘Damn why did I do that?’ Like, you’re older, you’re wiser, and my focus should only be the fighters that I’m facing. Those are the only people I should have a problem with or a beef with, not anyone else.”