Age hasn’t dulled Mayweather’s edge

It happens to an NFL running back at age 30. Production decreases. Skills diminish. Knees are shot.

Greats go to bed one night and awake as Terrell Davis in 2002.

The same goes for boxers. A time comes when the reflexes begin to slow and instincts fade and they just can't defend that jab like before. It could happen at 30. It could happen earlier.

It doesn't appear close for Floyd Mayweather Jr.

He never has been average in a ring or struggled deflecting a punch, always in exceptional condition and expertly prepared.

It's why he is 41-0.

It's why he will be 42-0.

Mayweather takes things to a different level than most athletes, from being surrounded by a laughable throng of enablers who spend every waking moment building his massive ego to a list of criminal charges and lawsuits his attorneys no doubt are paid handsomely to handle. You would think such controversy would cause distraction come time to fight.

Mayweather never has allowed it to.

It is a fact Victor Ortiz will learn tonight when the WBC welterweight champion engages Mayweather at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where size and youth and power will test and ultimately lose to experience.

It would make sense that a fighter such as Ortiz, who is 10 years younger than Mayweather and claims to have knocked down every opponent over 33 professional fights, would own a decisive advantage over a guy who has been accused more than not the past five years of handpicking opponents so as to assure his record remains perfect and who has just one knockout in his past six fights.

But little about Mayweather makes sense.

He is not 34 in a traditional boxing way, meaning he has not endured the sort of brutal beatings that turn spry legs to Jell-O. He has fought and won with a game plan others desperately have tried to solve and failed miserably doing so.

He hasn't fought in 16 months, and yet the rust that would affect most doesn't seem to erode his talent.

"Some guys when they get to this level, they can talk all the trash they want to talk, but when they get into the ring, and we're across from each other and we're face to face, they realize that my skill level is way better than they thought that it was," Mayweather said. "It looks a lot different from the outside than when you're in there facing me ...

"Fighters go into survival mode. (Ortiz) can't. He's not going to be able to. He talks about how much he believes in his skills."

Ortiz has talked to anyone who would listen this week, proclaiming he will be too big and strong for Mayweather, that he will do what 41 who came before couldn't.

Mayweather is right. Ortiz won't be able to help himself. His aggressiveness will do him in.

Fighters don't want to just beat Mayweather. They want to knock him out, finish him, stand over him. The problem is they're attacking one of the great counterpunchers in history. The problem is they're playing right into Mayweather's plan.

Ortiz had to overcome two knockdowns to beat Andre Berto in April and tonight encounters an entirely new world of skill. He could catch Mayweather early -- about the only time Mayweather is caught -- and have the stars align in a way few believe they can.

Shane Mosley at age 39 buckled Mayweather in the second round of their May 2010 bout. It can happen.

Mayweather, though, has this unrivaled way of surviving any trouble for the first few rounds as he surveys and dissects an opponent's strategy. After that, he just carves people up in a torrent of points that usually has him winning a decision.

"He said the fight won't go the distance," Mayweather said. "I said the fight won't go the distance. So, it won't go the distance. … He said 'I don't respect Mayweather,' but yet he knows everything about my record. He knows who I fought. But it's OK. Come (tonight), I won't have to brag or to boast. I'm going to go in there and execute the game plan.

"I've been doing this my whole life. Never had a job, never worked a job. My job has always been to win. I was built on winning."

He will do so again and awake Sunday 42-0.

He is not yet near a tired and aged and beaten-up Terrell Davis.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.