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Ryan Garcia Reveals Why Floyd Mayweather Is Bad For Boxing

Originally posted on KO on SI | By Grant Young | Last updated Sep 16, 2025 10:40 PM ET

Nobody can deny that Floyd "Money" Mayweather is one of the greatest boxers of all time.

Ever since Canelo Alvarez stated that he believed Terence Crawford is better than Mayweather during his post-fight press conference after losing to Crawford on September 13, the boxing community has been debating the respective resumés of Mayweather and Crawford, comparing and contrasting which deserves the nod as this century's best.

Ultimately, this debate will rage on because it's a subjective opinion. The objective is that both of these fighters are undefeated (at least for now in Crawford's case), were long-standing champions in several weight classes, and will go down as two of the greatest American boxers in the history of the sweet science.

However, there's an interesting debate to be had about how Mayweather and Crawford racked up their respective undefeated records. And this is an argument that active boxer Ryan Garcia made during a September 10 segment on Ring Magazine's Inside the Ring show.

Ryan Garcia Condemns Floyd Mayweather's Impact on Boxing

After a conversation on why Max Kellerman believes that Manny Pacquiao should be above Mayweather on a pound-for-pound ranking of the best boxers this century (in response to ESPN putting Floyd at No. 1 and Pacquiao at No. 2 in an article earlier this month), former NFL player LeSean McCoy said, "Nobody has changed the game like Floyd 'Money' Mayweather."

"In a bad way! In a bad way," Garcia retorted. He then added, "[Mayweather] mastered the art of knowing when to fight somebody and knowing when not to fight somebody. I mean, he's the best in that game. He's the best in making money, and making all the huge fights happen. But why? Because he was timing every single one of them.

"He never fought nobody really in their prime, prime [after junior lightweight]. So he changed the game in the worst way possible, you're right. Everybody is trying to protect their 0 [on their record]."

This argument hits close to home for Garcia because he put his undefeated record on the line to fight Gervonta "Tank" Davis in 2023, which ended with Garcia getting knocked out.

And he noted this during another point in the segment, saying that guys like him and Davis (along with Canelo and Crawford) are trying to reverse Mayweather's impact by fighting their other elite peers in their primes, despite it potentially adding a loss to their record.

It would be fascinating to hear Mayweather's response to Garcia's comments. But those who have closely followed Mayweather's career understand why there's a lot of truth to what Garcia said.

This article first appeared on KO on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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