02 October 2023 , 10:25
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Floyd Mayweather took over proceedings at the post-fight press conference for Canelo Alvarez's win over Jermell Charlo, demanding that reporters recognise his position as boxing's greatest of all time.
The legendary 50-0 boxer retired in 2017, but has stayed around the sport as a promoter, as well as competing in a number of exhibition bouts with celebrities and MMA fighters. And he was in attendance to watch Alvarez comfortably defeat Charlo on Saturday night in support of his young prospect Curmel Moton, who stopped Ezequiel Flores within a round of his debut.
And after the fight, Mayweather surprised reporters by taking to the stage with Moton to help push his prospect further, giving a speech before going to questions. However, he only took one before deciding he would give the stage over to his old rival Alvarez, albeit after demanding that one journalist declare he is the greatest after he had referred to the boxer as "arguably" so.
After the reporter made the throwaway comment, Mayweather took the microphone from his protege and asked a series of questions including: "What are we ranking it on? In the least amount of fights, I didn't have to have 70 fights or 150 fights, 300 fights. Did I or did I not beat the most world champions? OK. In the least amount of fights?
"Who got the highest gate? Who made the most money? Who was the most accurate fighter of all time? So we're basically saying that..." When the reporter responded by noting that he was "the greatest of all time", he replied "okay," and left the stage to Moton, before abruptly ending the press conference out of a feigned 'respect' for Alvarez.
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"We can't be disrespectful," Mayweather told the media, just moments after taking 15 minutes of time from Charlo and declaring that he didn't know how to pronounce the name of pound-for-pound great Naoya Inoue. "We got to let Canelo come here, Canelo is the main event and main attraction. I respect Canelo, he's one hell of a champion, done one hell of a job tonight, it's best that we let Canelo get his shine."
Mayweather had his promotional partner Leonard Ellerbe introduce Moton to the press after his impressive win. And he joked that he was in a lose-lose situation where if he didn't show up he would be viewed as unsupportive, but that if he did he would be seen to be hogging to the spotlight.