Mayweather vs. Marciano

That Floyd Mayweather Jr. has equaled the 49-0 unbeaten record of Rocky Marciano means nothing to those who truly know their boxing. Even if Mayweather opts out of his announced retirement to fight one more time and win to surpass the record, all that it will really mean is that he has surpassed the record. And any record between Mayweather and Marciano will always be nothing more than a number, a statistic.

There is no comparing Mayweather and Marciano. Mayweather notched his unblemished record with a lot of questionable victories, including those that many consider as non-fights, the most notable being that against Manny Pacquiao. That fight was supposed to be the fight of all time, for which boxing fans from all over the world descended on Las Vegas to see, some of them selling assets or getting into debt just to pay for the atrocious prices that turned out to be not worth it.

Mayweather is notorious for winning without having to fight for it. He ducks great exchanges inside the ring. He is considered one of the best defensive boxers in the world only because he refuses to engage. His fights are notable for being outrageously boring. If they should ever reinvent boxing to be a sport that goes to whoever runs away from a punch best, Mayweather would be first in line to enlist.

Mayweather should never have been called a fighter because he does not fight. He evades a fight as best as he can. That it is a wonder he keeps getting the decisions handed to him on a silver platter only shows the extent of how corrupted the sport of boxing has become. There is money to be made in the illusion of keeping Mayweather on his winning streak, even if no fight occurs and he merely benefits from the fact that a winner has to emerge from every bout.

Things were different with Marciano. There was a fighter if ever there was one. Almost every Marciano fight was a street fight. People always got their money's worth. Some may say that boxing is a cruel and bloody sport. Well, it is. It is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, both for the fighters who take up the sport and for the fans who love it. If you hate the sight of people slugging it out, don't watch a boxing bout. And you can take Mayweather with you on your way out.

In Marciano's time, fighters mostly fought 15-round championship bouts. Those were the real tests of greatness. And they were not just 15 rounds of three minutes each.

They were 15 rounds of real slambang gladiator bouts. When in the ring, fighters fought their hearts out that even if they lost, they earned more than just their pay -- they earned the respect of the fans.

If Mayweather uses his mouth to do the talking, Marciano and the boxers of his era let their punches do the talking. It was a time when "protect yourself at all costs" was not yet in vogue. Fighters can be floored several times, bloodied and gored, but, knees still weak, they stood up and kept on fighting, even if it was no longer the punches that kept them going but their heart that never gave out on their true calling.

For boxing is a fighting sport. It is not a dance-away-to-escape art exhibition that Mayweather seems to have perfected, and for which he has been scandalously been made rich on the thick carpet of failed expectations. And in the annals of the sport's history of failed expectations, none leaps out more prominently than Mayweather's non-fight with Pacquiao.

To say that Mayweather has matched the 49-0 record of Marciano is to elevate Mayweather to a level he does not deserve. More importantly, it demeans the memory of a fighter whose record did not come at the expense of anyone's credulity. Marciano earned his victories the hard, real and manly way. Many times Marciano had to get up from the canvass to win back a fight by sheer will to fight on.

That Marciano had one of the highest knockout percentages ever in boxing at close to 88 percent is an unassailable testament of the man as a real fighter. What Mayweather succeeded in matching is just a number. As to the level of real fighting, the level of real manhood, Mayweather could not even come up to the waistline of Marciano's already very short boxer's shorts. It is a crying shame for Mayweather to even lay claim to matching Marciano's number, much less his stature and honor.