The Unappreciated Career of Floyd Mayweather Jr.

He’s gone.

At least, he says he’s gone.

With his departure from boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has left behind two decades of dominance, a 49-0 record and a legacy as a cash cow who has been named Forbes’ highest-paid athlete in the world. He’s also left in his wake a storm of controversy, both in and out of the ring.

If the Mayweather story truly ended last Saturday night, how will he be remembered?

For a second, let’s try to forget the domestic violence and reckless money flaunting. Don’t pay any mind to his abrasive personality. Honestly, we shouldn’t pay too much attention to his résumé after Oscar De La Hoya. More importantly, scratch the relatively uneventful final bout of his career against Andre Berto.

It may sound like we are getting rid of the most important aspects of Mayweather’s tale. However, we’re only getting rid of the most visible ones for the sake of this discussion, because the early Mayweather years are the most important ones to his illustrious career. Although he’s been a tough pill to digest, the fact of the matter is that we often fail to give Mayweather credit for how he ended up where he is today.

Once you get past not liking his fighting style and all of the outside-the-ring distractions, you can focus on a very significant part of Mayweather’s career that was a game changer that took a lot of courage, a little bit of luck and a significant amount of talent.

Related » Sherdog’s Official Boxing Rankings

There has always been a debate about the fighters that Mayweather “ducked,” but it’s important to remember that Mayweather didn’t go into business for himself until his 37th fight, his bout with Carlos Baldomir in 2006. Before then, Top Rank set up Mayweather with his opponents and kept him far aware from the bigger names in the sport. For the first half of his career, Mayweather was absolutely brilliant in the ring. The problem: he wasn’t happy with how he was promoted by Bob Arum and begged for his promoter to find a different angle.

Simply put, Sugar Ray Leonard he was not.

Mayweather’s résumé is impressive. His one-sided destruction of then-unbeaten Diego Corrales in 2001, his back-to-back annihilations of Genaro Hernandez and Angel Manfredy, and his gutsy performance against Jose Luis Castillo all proved that Mayweather was part of an elite class. Yet skeptics choose to focus on who Mayweather didn’t fight during this time.

Some have brought up Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera, which is foolish because Mayweather never fought in the same division as his Mexican counterparts. Acelino Freitas and Joel Casamayor are also thrown into the ring, but the timing never worked out. After Mayweather beat Corrales, both Casamayor and Freitas both were stopped by the hard-hitting Chico. The luster in both of them fighting Mayweather was gone and the timing never worked out.

Shane Mosley was somebody whom the fighter formerly known as “Pretty Boy” called out publicly on many occasions. However, Mosley essentially said that a Mayweather fight wouldn’t happen because he needed a vacation and had a toothache. Kostya Tszyu and Mayweather could have fought, but Tszyu fell to Ricky Hatton while Mayweather opted for a systematic dismantling of Arturo Gatti.

The name Antonio Margarito often comes up, but Mayweather was adamant that he wanted to face Oscar De La Hoya and be paid $20 million to do it, rather than face Margarito and risk being placed in the shadow of the rest of Top Rank’s fighters.

Arum shuttered the idea and continued to try and put Mayweather in the ring with Margarito. Mayweather relented and paid the hefty price of $750,000 to get out of his deal with Arum, then went into business for himself. The risk was high, but the reward would end up being more than anybody could have ever imagined.

Nobody gives Mayweather credit for taking the risk to be without a promoter. He faced Baldomir in a barely half-full arena and finally baited De La Hoya into facing him. Mayweather had to make concessions to De La Hoya, including moving up to 154 pounds. He proved to Arum that the $20 million for which he had asked was nothing, as he earned $25 million in what would be the then-richest fight in boxing.

When the Mayweather plan kicked into high gear with the former Olympian helping mastermind the “HBO 24/7” series -- going full heel with the “Money” persona -- it created the perfect storm of personality conflict that fans bought into hook, line and sinker. All he had to do was win -- which, of course, he did.

After replacing De La Hoya as both the pay-per-view king and the best fighter in the business, Mayweather took a different route. Out of spite, he shrugged off any Arum-promoted fighter, which also included Manny Pacquiao. He did to others as they had done to him. Right or wrong, he earned the right to pick who he wanted to fight. He wiped out every opponent put in front of him, including Mosley, who acted like he always wanted to face Mayweather despite publicly shoving him aside years before.

Mayweather became arguably the greatest chess player in the history of the sport. But most people don’t enjoy watching chess, as much as we might appreciate the brilliance of it. Whether in the ring or in promotions, Mayweather took a few risks to put himself into the position he is today. With just under $1 billion earned, an unblemished record and all of his faculties, it’s hard to debate Mayweather’s greatness. But given all the extra circumstances, it’s easy to forget how far Mayweather has come.

Maybe he’ll get credit for those early years later on, when it’s not fresh on our memories.

Andreas Hale is a content producer for Jay Z's LifeandTimes.com and editor-in-chief of PremierWuzHere.com, as well as a frequent Sherdog.com columnist. Check out his archive here.