Floyd Mayweather Jr. rarely passes on the opportunity to throw shots toward Canelo Alvarez, but the recently anointed Hall of Fame fighter is siding with Alvarez as the Mexican star trades barbs with former stablemate Ryan Garcia. 

Alvarez chided Garcia recently after the upstart lightweight picked Gennadiy Golovkin to beat Alvarez in their Sept. 17 trilogy fight, saying that Garcia is ungrateful, has accomplished nothing, owes former trainer Eddy Reynoso money, and that he wouldn’t beat Gervonta Davis in a potential fight.

Garcia clapped back and said his path to a title is not as easy as Alvarez’s once was at the age of 20 when he fought Matthew Hatton for a vacant title. 

The back and forth banter has dominated boxing storylines for much of the last week.

Mayweather – who handed Alvarez his first career loss in 2013 – chimed in on the situation as well. 

"You see Ryan Garcia, first he's praising Canelo. Right? He wanna learn from Canelo. You're in Canelo's training camp. Now it's all hate. Oh I don't like him. I don't like this. Accomplish what Canelo has accomplished, then speak bad about him … But you don't need to speak bad about him anyway because we all need to stay in our own lane and do us,” Mayweather told FightHype.com founder Ben Thompson in an interview. "One thing about Canelo, he's gonna step up to the plate and do what he gotta do. He's gonna fight. I may shoot sh!t at him but he gonna fight. I can't knock the motherf---er because he's going down in the Hall of Fame.

“I will always give guys their flowers. I'm not a hater. They want to keep telling you 'Floyd is jealous, he's this, he's that.’ I'm not jealous. If I was jealous of fighters I wouldn't push them to be great. Remember this. When you have seen beef on social media, I have always been the reaction, not the action.”

Mayweather is certainly an interested observer in Garcia’s career. 

In order for the much-discussed and desired Davis versus Garcia showdown to take place, terms need to be reached with Mayweather, Davis, and preferred broadcast network Showtime as well as Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, Garcia, and DAZN. 

In Feb. 2019, Golden Boy filed a cease-and-desist letter to Mayweather claiming tampering after Mayweather offered Garcia $200,000 to beat Rolando Romero.

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com.