Floyd Mayweather said Manny Pacquiao will take his mantle as the world’s premier pound-for-pound boxer.

Mayweather said Manny Pacquiao was his pound-for-pound successor

*Floyd Mayweather’s apparent retirement paves the way boxing’s new star
*Mayweather said Manny Pacquiao was his pound-for-pound successor
*But with PacMan bound for politics, who will next command big money?
*Nicaragua’s tiny Roman Gonzalez sits atop Ring’s pound-for-pound pile
*The No 1 contender is Gennady Golovkin, the dominate middleweight force
ON the eve of his Las Vegas victory over Andre Berto last month, in what he still insists was his last fight, I asked Floyd Mayweather who would be left standing as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world following his retirement.

Generously he nominated Manny Pacquiao, his long-standing challenger for that accolade before they finally got it on last May, with Mayweather winning the richest – albeit one of the most disappointing – fight of all time.

That probably still holds true, at least until Pacquiao recovers from his shoulder surgery and fights again next spring.

But the PacMan who would be president of the Philippines is on the verge of trading fisticuffs for full-time politics.

So the bigger question is, who will accede to Mayweather’s peacock throne as the pay-per-view king of the ring?

If the wider boxing public could become excited by the smallest men in gloves, the answer would surprise many.

Nicaragua’s mighty atom Roman Gonzalez sits atop the current pound-for-pound rankings of the bible of boxing, Ring magazine.
Gonzalez is inching his way up the divisions, ounce by ounce, and has now added the junior flyweight and flyweight world titles to his initial minimal-weight championship.

In so doing he has compiled a perfect 43-0 career, with no fewer than 37 of those victories coming by way of knock-out.

Thus he is closing fast on the record Floyd Mayweather now shares with the legendary Rocky Marciano of retiring as undefeated world champion after 49 wins.

But if he is to capture the public’s fascination and full attention, Gonzalez will probably have to somehow grow at least four more divisions, into a featherweight.

If he remains below the radar, let us hope the next monarch of money brings the same addition of explosive finishing power to lightning skills as Gonzalez.

That knock-out ratio of his is extraordinary among the wee men. His willingness to take risks in achieving it is the missing X-factor which has held boxing’s luminaries back from anointing Mayweather as one of the all-time greats.

Mr Money may well be the best defensive boxer ever, his exposition of the noble art of self-defence utterly admirable. But there was more than that to Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Leonard, to name but three.

Of Mayweather’s heirs apparent, Gonzalez included, there are a few who combine thrills with skills.

The leading candidate is Gennady Golovkin, the dominate force now in the classic middleweight division. Of the Kazakh world champion’s 33 wins in his unblemished record, all but three have been KOs. If he takes out David Lemieux in a title unification this weekend expect him to climb higher than his current fourth position in the Ring ratings.

If he goes on to vanquish the winner of next month’s highly anticipated fight between two other stand-out fighters he should go top, since both Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto are pound-for-pound contenders in their own right

After that, if Andre Ward can be coaxed back down to the 165-pound catch-weight at which Golovkin is offering to fight him instead of going up from super-middle to light-heavyweight, Golovkin would have the chance to cement his place in the pantheon of the truly great.

Ward might be up there already if only he fought more often and engaged more dynamically. But, like Mayweather, he is more technician than mortician.

If Ward does go to light-heavyweight, a clash between him and Sergey ‘Krusher’ Kovalev could decide their standing.
America’s Terence Crawford is an exciting new face in the welterweight firmament. Once he makes the move up from light-welter, which is believed to be imminent, then the eventual winner between our two Brits, Amir Khan and Kell Brook, could stake their claims against him.

Two more of the little guys are ahead of Gonzalez in public perception at the moment.

Cuba’s Guillermo Rigondeaux and Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko – holders of world junior featherweight and featherweight titles respectively – are brilliant former amateur champions, with Lomachenko the most eye-catching now. -dailymail.co.uk