Mayweather says Pacquiao's backers ate their words

MANILA, Philippines – Floyd Mayweather Jr. took a swipe at supporters of Manny Pacquiao, whom he defeated last May in boxing’s richest fight ever.

Mayweather, who faces Andre Berto on Sunday in what’s supposed to be his final fight, recalled how Pacquiao’s fans insisted that the Filipino icon will emerge victorious in their megabuck showdown last May 5.

“I’m not Nostradamus but if you go look at an old interview, I talked about Pacquiao, what they were going to say, what they were going to do and how that fight was going to go,” Mayweather recently said in a report by openinground.com.

Mayweather outpointed Pacquiao to become the undisputed welterweight champion and end the debate on who’s the top pound-for-pound fighter in the planet. Still, he couldn’t get over the fact that many observers had placed Pacquiao on a pedestal, giving the General Santos-based southpaw a huge chance to defeat Mayweather.

“Now you got to realize probably almost everybody on the phone chose Pacquiao [to beat me]. Everybody that said that throughout the years that I was a coward, I was scared, he couldn’t beat Pacquiao. They gave him this. They gave him so many accolades and he’s an all-time great,” the undefeated American continued.

Nevertheless, Mayweather was happy to prove his critics wrong.

“But all these people had to eat their words. So if he’s an all-time great, then what does that make me? If they’re saying he’s the fighter of the century, what does that make me? So when they do rate me and when my fight is over, the only thing I can do is believe in myself and believe in my skills,” Mayweather said.

“I’m going to be ‘The Best Ever’ till the day I die.” – Dino Maragay