The Grand Rapids Press, while covering his father Floyd Sr.’s 1984 comeback, wrote: “The little seven-year-old feinted and ducked, dove into the corners and attacked with his loveable laugh.”

As he accompanied his father to the boxing gym, young Floyd would’ve heard names like Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns plenty. Those were the last fighters Sr. was involved with before his career was derailed with a shotgun blast to the leg.

The elder Mayweather’s most recent fight was a loss to Leonard, and a scheduled fight against Hearns ended up canceled when he was shot by the brother of little Floyd’s mom following an argument and threats at a skating rink in 1979. Mayweather Sr. never found his old spark and never did escape his family.

Floyd Sr.’s older brother Roger Mayweather won the WBA junior lightweight title in early 1983 and made one defense before heading home to Michigan. The plan was to give his brother a dose of sparring with a world champion, and it worked: Floyd, already recovered and still fighting, got the win.

The former amateur star may never have won a world title with or without the gunshot wound that, police said, left him with “a portion of the bone… ‘shot away,’” though the incident clearly accelerated his demise. Ultimately Floyd Sr. fought 35 times as a pro and retired with a respectable but unspectacular 28-6-1 record.

Family turmoil continued, yet despite (or perhaps because of) being raised in a messy and often dangerous world, Floyd Jr. excelled as an amateur fighter. In fact, he outdid his father and uncle very early on by winning the major tournaments they never could. Floyd Jr. was a National Amateur Champion, National Golden Gloves Champion, National P.A.L. Champion and one of the most talented members of a strong 1996 U.S. Olympic boxing team.

Like any hypercompetitive person might do, Mayweather used a highly-disputed loss in the Olympics to fuel his fear of losing over the next few decades. But family issues weighed on Little Floyd like an anchor. Floyd Sr. spent several years in prison on drug charges, leaving Roger and another uncle, Jeff, to handle little Floyd’s corner before his release. He developed a public feud with his own promoter over, among other things, Floyd’s professional involvement with his uncle and father.

Both Roger and Floyd Sr. taught the young fighter to fight in a specific, signature style that relied on a mixture of defensive tricks and incredible in-ring vision. When Floyd Mayweather Jr. turned professional and campaigned at 130 pounds, he struck with quick and crushing punches. The fighter later criticized for being a “runner” and avoiding exchanges didn’t exist yet in this hungry, eye-opening version. Eating a hard, flush “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather counter at junior lightweight robbed opponents of their legs, assuming Mayweather’s hands were injured at the time.

Toward the end of the 1990s, junior lightweight spilled over with name fighters. Some were future lightweights waiting to outgrow the division, others were aging stars, and Mayweather tore through who he could. His world title-winning victory over Genaro Hernández ended the latter’s career and set him on a path to defeat Angel Manfredy, Justin Juuko and even entertaining journeyman Emanuel Augustus.

Mayweather was about the only person alive who foresaw his superstardom at the time. From the outside, his path seemed appropriate, yet he (in hindsight correctly) yelped to press that he deserved the same treatment as Oscar de la Hoya and Roy Jones Jr., fellow Olympic stars who came before him.

A wipeout of puncher Diego “Chico” Corrales in a 2001 showdown of unbeaten stars erased most doubts about Mayweather. He suffered his first official knockdown against Carlos Hernández in the fight after that, though he went down as a result of hand pain, not receiving a punch. And lingering hand problems led to slightly more subdued performances and more time off between fights, providing just enough cushion for critics to pile on again.

Jesús Chávez, a swarming fighter born in México who grew up mostly in the U.S., ranked as Mayweather’s top challenger for nearly three years. Chávez was once a good amateur before involvement in an armed robbery put him in prison, and that led to ongoing legal problems as he later navigated his pro career. His story was chronicled in the film “Split Decision,” and it made him a local star in Texas, where he fought and built a following. His only loss was to future contender Carlos Gerena in 1995, meaning technically he was undefeated longer than Mayweather, who lost in the ‘96 Olympics.

Ranking or not, Chávez wasn’t really on Mayweather’s radar. Floyd fought on HBO like most of the sport’s biggest stars of the era, and for years he tried to drum up support for a fight with British featherweight “Prince” Naseem Hamed. After Mayweather defeated Corrales and Hamed lost to Marco Antonio Barrera, it meant every other star-making fight was north of 130 pounds.

Mayweather-Chávez was officially announced for the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco in October of 2001, and Mayweather indicated it would be his last fight in the division. He intended to face off against lightweight champion José Luis Castillo, then junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, he said. The September 11 Attacks and last-minute dental issues postponed the fight to November 10, 2001, 25 years ago today.

Chávez approached pre-fight hype with quiet politeness he refused to show in the ring. “I’m going to that arena [to] enjoy myself, and fight the best fight of my life.”

As expected, Chávez was an ideal foil to Mayweather, who casually dismissed Chávez with backhanded compliments. Oddsmakers weren’t convinced that Chávez could dent Mayweather, and they knew a thing or two.

Apart from aesthetics, the problem with Mayweather’s sharp, defense-heavy style is that nuance often goes unnoticed even by experienced observers. As Chávez surged forward and pinned Mayweather to the ropes, pounding away at Floyd’s body and pushing him around in the first half of the fight, the crowd and even HBO’s unofficial judge Harold Lederman bought it. They weren’t convinced by replays of Mayweather connecting with hard, flush counter punches and it didn’t seem to matter that the majority of Chávez’s attack hit nothing but air.

Chávez wasn’t totally ineffective, to be fair. Mayweather clinched enough to suggest Chávez was getting his gloves on him more than he wanted and in Rounds 5 and 6, Mayweather moved his legs to stop from getting tangled up.

The second half of the bout began with Chávez freezing Mayweather against the ropes again, only to absorb a series of hard uppercuts and heavy jabs to the body through the rest of Round 7. Mayweather appeared completely unmoved by a hard combination to his body and he ended the round by rocking Chávez off-balance with his own work.

Mayweather flipped a switch in Round 8. Not much changed from Chávez, who kept trying to smother Mayweather and keep him against the ropes, but Mayweather continually punished his foe’s attempts to do damage. Mayweather dodged almost everything and shook off what he didn’t, including whatever cut his right eye, and by the last minute Chávez was swaying again. Round 9 was the same, except Chávez looked tired as Mayweather snapped his head back.

The crowd cheered both fighters at the end of Round 9, but Chávez’s corner knew another round simply meant three more minutes of leather for their increasingly-vulnerable fighter, and they pulled the plug. At the time of the stoppage, the judges had Mayweather a clear winner, with Chávez getting three rounds on the most generous card.

“All he could do was come straight ahead,” Mayweather told reporters after the fight. “I just hit him with short shots and basically wore him down.”

Chávez’s trainer Ronnie Shields tried to soften the blow for his fighter by taking responsibility for the stoppage, but Chávez refused to protest: “I agreed with [Ronnie]. I was getting hit, getting hurt. Safety comes first.”

For a few months, Jesús Chávez held the distinction of giving Floyd Mayweather Jr. his most difficult fight. Chávez and his gutsy outing raised questions about Mayweather’s decision to move to lightweight, but he was the only one with the crystal ball. Hundreds of millions awaited him.

Gym time with Floyd Sr. was decades and miles ago. These days the younger Floyd Mayweather still hears the names Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, though not in the same way. Now, like it or not, it’s usually to compare them all as hall of fame members and all-time greats.