By David Sauvage

Floyd Mayweather operates at an entirely different speed from mortal men. It’s as if his agility allowed him to carve out his own magical space in time. He’s got a defense that harkens back to Keanu Reeves dodging bullets in the Matrix: he moves between his opponents’ punches.

Still, there are two ways to beat him.

 

Number one would be brilliant gamesmanship. Take a look at Antonio Tarver’s last masterpiece against Roy Jones. Tarver didn’t outgun the faster Jones so much as he outthought him.

Number two would be an awesome punch. Witness Tarver’s second fight with Jones. It came like a gift from the gods.

Sharmba Mitchell has neither.

Apart from the bizarre spectacle of flapped and flopping shorts, what Mitchell does bring is speed. This would seem to make for an exciting fight against Mayweather, who brings the same.

The problem is that Mayweather brings one hundred times more of it.

In all fairness, Mitchell is a good boxer. He beat legitimate contenders, in particular Ben Tackie, while he was waiting for his rematch with Kostyu Tszyu. But the fact remains that he’s no more in Mayweather’s league than he was in Tszyu’s when the champion, now ex-champion, destroyed him in three.

If Mitchell doesn’t choke, he’ll be out-pointed in a really boring dance-off. If he does choke, he’ll fall flat somewhere in the middle.

All of which begs the question: why bother?

Boxing has two answers, neither one of which is satisfying. The first is that anything can happen. On a trivial level, that’s true. Sharmba Mitchell could knock Floyd Mayweather out cold -- and the ring card girl could sleep with me afterward. As a general principle, however, gravity should be assumed to operate unless proven otherwise.

The second excuse is even sillier. While promoters have a thousand ways of putting it, for this particular match it amounts to, “Well, he’s got to fight somebody, and Mitchell’s there.” Under this logic, an otherwise spectacular fighter throws away his prime for less money over a longer and lesser career.

It’s so frustrating. Here’s a fighter of historical proportions. Why isn’t he fighting the best that’s out there?

The obvious choice is Zab Judah. Having come into his own, Judah destroyed Cosme Rivera with a combination of feinting and furiousness that hasn’t been seen since Roy Jones was Roy Jones. He also proved he had the skills to outbox a first rate boxer when he battered then bewildered Corrie Spinks in February.

Best of all, like Mayweather, Judah is a charismatic egomaniac with an equally  preposterous sense of style.

Who wouldn’t want to see these two make it personal?

Mayweather claims he tried, but Judah wasn’t ready. “Zab Judah is a video groupie,” he said irrelevantly. “He’s mad because he’s not a million dollar man… You know this guy didn’t want to fight.”

Of course, Mayweather made the same claim about Winky Wright, Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley, and any other opponent I hoped he’d meet.

On the flip side, Judah seems genuinely baffled by Mayweather’s aloofness. “I don't understand why Floyd spent all this time trying to make a fight with Winky,” Judah wondered after Mayweather’s predicable thrashing of Arturo Gatti. “I am the undisputed welterweight world champion -- just seven pounds heavier than Floyd -- and he wants to move to 154 and face a man with no titles? I don't get it.”

I don’t either, especially now that Mayweather is at Judah’s weight. Could it be that Mayweather is telling us something? What’s going to happen when Judah eventually gets his hands on the best dodger in the game?

For the moment, though, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. If you’re into great battles like I am, then Mitchell and Mayweather isn’t for you. If you appreciate the preternatural powers of a proven genius, however, then on Saturday you should watch the Pretty Boy take down one more in a long line of inevitable losers.

Or you could wait until he fights someone for real.