Floyd Mayweather is an immense talent, but boxing not only survived, it thrived, long before he ever pulled on a pair of gloves. And, as much as it might jolt his ego, it will survive just fine once he decides he to retire from the ring for good.

Boxing survived the retirements of Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard and it will survive without Mayweather, as well.

For all the good Mayweather thinks he's doing for the sport, the reality is he's doing it far, far, far more harm. Forget the lunacy of not making the fight with Manny Pacquiao, a bout the fans of the sport that he professes to want to please, have been desperate to see. The problem here is that Mayweather's success has led him to believe that it's a sport of one and that he's the only fighter who matters.

There are many fans and sycophants in the media who buy that angle and repeat it ad nauseum, but for all the good Mayweather's bi-annual mega-fights do for boxing, he's also bringing it great harm with many of his words and actions (or lack of actions).

Mayweather did an interview with FightHype.com's Ben Thompson -- he rarely speaks to any media except Thompson other than when he's trying to promote a fight and needs the publicity -- in which he blasted Oscar De La Hoya for guiding Canelo Alvarez from Showtime to HBO. Mayweather talks repeatedly about being his own boss, which is also what Alvarez wants to do. Alvarez wanted to decide how his career unfolded and made sure it happened the way he wanted by directing De La Hoya to bring him back to HBO, yet Mayweather takes issue with another fighter taking charge of his career.

Oscar De La Hoya has always been disloyal; very disloyal. He was very disloyal to [ex-Golden Boy Promotions CEO] Richard Schaefer. Richard Schaefer built that company from the ground up. I don't have anything against Eric Gomez at all, but De La Hoya is a piece of [expletive]. Oscar is a snake! [Showtime Sports executive vice president/general manager] Stephen Espinoza, he's been more than fair. It gets no bigger than Showtime. What I love so much about Showtime is that we are the only side. Wherever Mayweather goes, it's showtime, period!

Now, forget for a moment that Mayweather himself made a similar move when he jumped in 2013 from HBO to Showtime in exactly the same manner for a better deal. For years, Mayweather would lavish praise upon HBO and refer to it as the best network. Showtime only became the best network in his eyes after it lavished him with an extraordinary contract that HBO wouldn't, and perhaps couldn't, match.

View photos Canelo Alvarez jumped back to HBO from Showtime on Sept. 23, 2014. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Getty Images) More

Time will tell if the decision was correct, but De La Hoya made the move not only to take Alvarez to a place where he'd be able to land the type of fights he wanted, but also to the network which historically has had far more success building stars.

Showtime had a marvelous year showing great fights in 2013, though it's dropped off considerably in 2014. But Showtime hasn't truly built a star who fought exclusively on its network in the 21st century.

The majority of the high-profile fighters who fight on Showtime's Championship Boxing series, men such as Adrien Broner, Danny Garcia and Amir Khan, were first developed on HBO.

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