When Floyd Mayweather Jr gets back in the ring in Las Vegas on Saturday night for the first time in nearly 17 months, against a young, hungry world champion in Victor Ortiz, he will command the respect of the bookmakers and the awe of nearly everyone else.
Danny Garcia, meanwhile, has been mounting a case over the past few days to suggest backing the 34-year-old Mayweather to take the WBC welterweight title from his 24-year-old fighter is a poor investment. Only their closest friends are listening.
If Ortiz does what few expect him to, he will derail the fight every boxing fan wants to see: Mayweather against Manny Pacquiao – which is still no certainty to happen, due to Mayweather's obsession with Olympic-style drugs testing and Pacquiao's increasing involvement in politics in the Philippines.
In the face of mass scepticism, Garcia, a decent ex-fighter of modest achievement who delivers Coca-Cola by day in Oxnard, California, and trains just one fighter by night, insists his lone star will embarrass Mayweather like no one has managed in 41 fights. He says all Mayweather's opponents, except one, Ricky Hatton, have made the same mistake. "I saw a lot of fights of him, and the guys, they show him [too much] respect. We're not going to respect Floyd Mayweather."
Hatton showed Mayweather no respect and a lot of his chin. Mayweather stuck a perfect left hook on it in the 10th round before knocking him out in this ring four years ago. Garcia has pored over that fight. "I saw when Ricky Hatton was coming in, he was putting good pressure on him but with no defence, jumping in, hands down, jaw in the air. Floyd was waiting for [his defence to drop], and he got him good. Hatton: good fighter, but he was too small for him, and too open."
Garcia says Ortiz will pressure Mayweather while remaining alert to danger. "We got to be ready for his counter. He's pretty fast and his best punch is the counter. We're going to get inside. If we have to move, we move. If Victor goes inside, Floyd can't counter-punch on the inside. He can in the middle distance or the outside. Inside, that's our fight. He's got problems, because Victor hits hard with the upper-cut, with short hooks. That's our best chance. He says that he's not going to run, that he's going to stay in front of Victor. How can he stay in front of Victor and not get hurt? He's going to feel Victor's punches and he's going to have to run. He likes to run. He never stays in front of an opponent. If he shows his back, we're going to hit him on his back, because that's his fault. The ref should know that if he turns his back, the punches are still coming."
But that is exactly what Hatton lost a point for against Mayweather. Isn't that risky, especially when the same referee, Joe Cortez, is in charge? "Yes, so Joe needs to look at that and be fair. When a fighter turns his back so much, what must [the referee] think? He's trying to cover up with his back. That's not boxing."
Garcia concedes that getting inside and staying there might be a problem if Cortez disengages the fighters as he did when Marcos Maidana, a vicious in-fighter, lost to Amir Khan. "When Maidana was coming in to hit Khan, he was separating them so quick. That's Maidana's chance gone right there. If the ref will take Victor out of there, he won't let him fight."
There is one part of Mayweather's armoury that concerns Garcia more than any other: his elbow. "When he fought Hatton, [Mayweather] was using the elbow so much. And Joe Cortez was looking at the elbow, right there in front of him. I don't know why he didn't take a point off him."
Mayweather's elbow comes up when he turns his body and leans away to offer a smaller target, as Cornelius Boza Edwards notes. Boza Edwards, the Ugandan who boxed out of Britain in the 80s and briefly held the world super-featherweight title, has been a Las Vegan for 30 years and works in the Mayweather camp.
"Floyd keeps his chin tucked in near his left shoulder, arm down, to draw the punch before countering," he says. "A lot of fighters have done that, including Sugar Ray Robinson."
Mayweather would love that comparison. He is dismissive of his generation, preferring to place himself among the greats of the past, and he has a portfolio to support his case. Garcia is unimpressed. "It would not surprise me if we knock him out in the first round," says the trainer, employing the American fight-argot plural.
Some things in life you don't do. You do not leave your glasses on the bed; it can be unwise to back three-year-old fillies, especially each-way; dwarves in New Zealand are to be trusted as far as you can throw them. But, of all the alleged verities, putting faith in a trainer's predictions for a chinny fighter whom bookies rate a 9-2 underdog against a 1-8 counter-punching genius is as perilous a challenge to logic and the fates as exists in sport.
Mayweather, an enthusiastic gambler, this week offered Ortiz an even $2.5m wager on the outcome, the size of the champion's purse. Ortiz declined. He might perish from over-ambition in the MGM Grand, but he is not a complete fool.
