Floyd Mayweather: ‘I’m Better Than Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson’

In an interview with ESPN, Mayweather said he's better than boxing legends Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson.

"[Ali] only fought in one weight class...No one can ever brainwash me to make me believe that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali was better than me.

"But one thing I will [say]: I’m going to take my hat off to those guys and respect those guys because those are the guys that paved the way for me."

Mayweather continued to make his case for greatest-of-all-time status by citing Ali's loss to Leon Spinks and the "rope-a-dope" tactic he used against Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

"Spinks beat him when he had seven fights," Mayweather said. "They'd never put a fighter in there with Floyd Mayweather with seven fights. So are you going to tell me that it's cool to lay on the ropes and take punishment and let a man tire himself out from beating you and then he basically fatigued?

"You hit him with a few punches and he go down and quit, and you want to be glorified for that?"

Mayweather makes great points about the other boxers. I think Floyd Mayweather is a marketing genius and he knows how so get peoples' blood boiling.

Him just saying he is better than the greatest Muhammad Ali will offend people. Those same people are going to order the fight on May 1 just because they hope he loses. Mayweather has to think he is the greatest—a boxer can't really take the risk of thinking someone will beat him. In competitive events like boxing you can't take the chance of thinking anyone is better than you, even legends.