Floyd Mayweather Jr. is better than Ali. Just ask him!!!

(Jonathan Alcorn/EPA)

The May 2 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will do a lot to settle the debate about who is the greater fighter, but Mayweather says he already knows. In fact, he thinks he’s the greatest of all time. Sorry, Muhammad Ali, Mayweather just doesn’t buy into your GOAT status.

“How?” he asked Stephen A. Smith in an ESPN interview. “He only fought in one weight class. … No one can ever brainwash me to make me believe that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali was better than me.

“But one thing I will do: I’m going to take my hat off to those guys and respect those guys because those are the guys that paved the way for me.” Mayweather, who is undefeated, cited Ali’s 1978 loss to Leon Spinks and the “rope a dope” tactic he used in beating George Foreman for the world heavyweight title in 1974 to support his case.

“Leon Spinks beat him when he had seven fights. They’d never put a fighter in there with Floyd Mayweather with seven fights. So are you going tell me that it’s cool to lay on the ropes and take punishment and let a man tire himself out from beating you and then he basically fatigued?

“You hit him with a few punches and he go down and quit, and you want to be glorified for that?”