Shoutouts: Mayweather the … loser? And what his successor needs to learn

We hear and read a lot about Floyd Mayweather the winner. After all, winning is all Money has ever done since turning pro. That’s why it was refreshing last week to read about Floyd Mayweather the loser.

As Jonathan Snowden points out in Olympic Legacy: Floyd Mayweather and the Art of Losing, “Many of the lessons you learn in the ring are imprinted on your soul only in defeat,” and since he’s never lost as a pro, “There’s a lot about professional boxing Floyd Mayweather doesn’t know.”

Ah, but life doesn’t begin at your first professional fight, which is comforting for those of us who have yet to turn pro. Mayweather was a loser at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, dropping a decision to Bulgarian Serafim Todorov that was so controversial the U.S. formally protested and an American judge resigned his position.

Snowden, like the rest of us, can only speculate about how that defeat affected and motivated Mayweather, but it’s an interesting tale well told, and it leads off today’s edition of the B/R Blog Shoutouts.

Welterweight Adrian Broner likes to position himself as the next Mayweather, often referring to the pound-for-pound king as his “big brother,” but Lyle Fitzsimmons argues that the welterweight has a lot he needs to learn from Floyd, especially outside the ring. Referring to his profane, unsportsmanlike postfight interview on the Mayweather-Maidana undercard Saturday, Fitzsimmons writes:

If it’s a guy just being who he is, fine. He’s a big-time ring talent, and that’s all any of us have a right to ask from him on a boxing show.

Win big fights and you’ll be judged a big fighter. And if you don’t care if people cheer for you, you needn’t act as if you do.

But if Broner’s true aim is to inherit the mantel of overall greatness upon Mayweather’s exit, nights like Saturday indicate there’s a lot more ground to cover before this “little brother” becomes a real man.

Here are a couple of non-boxing Shoutouts:

Sabermetrics for Dummies: How-to Guide for MLB Fans to Learn the Ropes by Zachary D. Rymer

Why It’s Officially Time to Believe in the Portland Trail Blazers by Adam Fromal