Happy Birthday Floyd Mayweather Jr

So today Floyd Mayweather Jr celebrates his 44th birthday which means there isn’t a better time to write another post on the one they call Money Mayweather and the best of the 21st century…

Floyd Mayweather Jr was most known for his excellent defensive abilities, some people call it the Philly Shell but truth is it was more of a Michigan variation of the Shoulder Roll. Michigan utilised that very effective Mid-Western American style of fighting and greats such as Floyd Mayweather Jr and James Toney perfected this.

But how did Floyd Mayweather Jr handle the shoulder roll or Philly Shell when he faced an opponent who used this style of fighting? In this article I breakdown how Floyd Mayweather Jr did exactly that against Arturo Gatti.

The Pivot

The first tactic Floyd Mayweather Jr used was the pivot – Floyd would especially pivot off the right hand and by doing this he was pivoting to the side on which Gatti was holding the lead arm low, allowing him to attack the opening again.

Switching Levels

Mayweather would often switch the attack of his right hand to both the body and the head – of course this was the side Gatti was holding the lead hand arm, by switching levels with the right hand Gatti did not know whether Mayweather was going to punch the body or the head, this made it difficult for Gatti to know whether to use the lead arm to defend against the body punch or the head punch, this confusion meant he simply was tagged repeatedly by Floyd Mayweather Jr and the right hand, whether it was to the body or head.

The Lead Left Hook

Arturo Gatti was constantly outside slipping the jab so what Mayweather did instead was to throw the lead left hook and he would throw it by making the left hook start out like a jab which tricked Gatti into thinking a jab was coming and outside slipping, instead Gatti was slipping into Mayweather’s lead left hook

The Straight Left

Very often the shoulder roll and philly shell rolls the right hand and then blocks the left hook but Mayweather would mix up his shots so that after the right hand, when Gatti had rolled the shot, instead of him blocking a left hook, Mayweather would throw the straight left and hit Gatti down the middle.

Here’s the video to see how Floyd Mayweather Jr put it into action against Arturo Gatti.