There are few professional athletes subject to the scrutiny, and at times outright derision, that often is directed at boxing's pound-for-pound king, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Despite 44 professional wins, eight world championships in five weight classes, three lineal world titles and grossing more money than any athlete in the world this past year, it never seems to be enough. The bar constantly gets raised higher and higher.
And now, with a fight against unified junior middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez looming, the critics are again in full swing, asking for an even larger challenge should Mayweather win.
Forget about Sergio Martinez—that ship has sailed. Now it's all about undefeated, and undisputed, super middleweight champion Andre Ward.
There are already those who are looking past Alvarez towards Ward as the next big challenge, despite the fact that this fight is, on its face, absolutely ludicrous.
But that's just par for the course for Floyd Mayweather. It's what happens when you exist in a world where half the population feels you can do no wrong, and the other half wants nothing more than to shut those people up.
When Mayweather signed on to face Robert Guerrero this past May 4 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas there were a slew of articles written, and dozens of boxing pundit interviews given, in which the consensus was that "The Ghost" would present a stiff challenge.
His rugged style, determination and grit, many felt, could present problems for Mayweather, especially given his recent prison sentence and year-long absence from the ring. Those same people were all too quick to dismiss Guerrero as flat-footed, average and built to be taken apart by Floyd's fast hands and impenetrable guard as soon as the final bell sounded.
In his latest attempt to silence the critics, Mayweather announced via Twitter that he would face the undefeated Alvarez in September.
At 22 years old, many feel that Alvarez's physical advantages—he will likely outweigh Mayweather by close to 20 pounds in the ring on fight night—and his attacking style will be too much for a fighter who by that point will be closing in on his 37th birthday.
But then there are others who are dismissing Canelo in advance of the fight, calling him green, overrated, protected and nothing more than a figment of the creative hype machine that is Golden Boy Promotions.
The logic goes that Alvarez has been carefully managed to this spot, that his resume and accomplishments are paper-thin, and that the only reason he has secured the Mayweather fight is because of his marketability.
Those detractors now turn to Andre Ward as the man who should replace Manny Pacquiao as the guy Floyd Mayweather must fight.
Ward, who has recently been sidelined with a shoulder injury, is the current undisputed 168-pound champion. In his professional career he has never fought below middleweight, and he hasn't even been there since 2006.
For there to be even the remotest of possibilities for this fight to happen, Ward would almost certainly need to come down to middleweight, if not lower, and entice Mayweather to come into the ring at by far the highest weight of his career.
Mayweather is a natural welterweight who has only fought above 147 pounds twice. Both of those fights were against men—Oscar De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto—who had also come up in weight. In each of those affairs, Floyd came in a few pounds below the limit and didn't rehydrate much before stepping into the ring.
Asking him to face Ward, who weighs in at 168 but walks into the ring as a full-blown cruiserweight, is simply not fair. It's just too great a weight difference and is really only brought up by those who have an intense desired to see Mayweather beaten.
Even the Alvarez fight seemed on the ropes, with reports the week the fight was signed that the two camps couldn't agree on weight issues before a catchweight of 152 pounds was agreed upon. And you can't blame the Mayweather camp for their reluctance to take on a guy that much larger.
And Ward would be even larger still—two weight divisions larger.
It's a fight that will never happen, and any discussions of it don't have basis in reality. They are simply fantasy, cooked up by those who like to deal in hypotheticals or are clinging to the hope that somebody will come along and silence Floyd Mayweather.
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