BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL
Floyd Mayweather won a predictable landslide decision against the more popular Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas on Saturday night before a world wide audience. Most casual fans home and abroad were favouring Pacquiao to overthrow Mayweather, but projections of a points win by several boxing experts just about proved correct, if not controversial. More cynicism was cast after it was recently revealed that 3 Judges who all awarded Mayweather with the victory, but in every corner where they awarded their scores, Mayweather was labelled as being in the red corner. Pacquiao protested the decision, though it is fair to say that neither fighter did enough to be adamant of a victorious result. The American who is now unbeaten in 48 fights was typically adept in his defence, showing his usual sharpness in the use of his jabs and combining this with the excellent ring craft that has characterized his 16 year fledging career which the American announced will come to an end this year.
Pacquiao who lost a somewhat debatable decision was relatively ambitious for much of the fight, but did not seem to be as industrious as usual. He rocked Mayweather once but was unable to finish him. One missing quality from Pacquaio’s arsenal was the ability to sustain a barrage of meaningful blows because of the American’s constant mobility around the ring. On a few occasions, Pacquioa was able to corner Mayweather by the ring and mount an attack on him, but the defensive genius simply kept his arms high by the side of his head, leaving the many punches thrown by Pacquiao to be to no avail as they simply landed on the forearms of the American.
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Mayweather’s ingenuity showed in spurts, his defence was typically supreme. Nonetheless, the American was not adventurous enough but seemed rather content in negating the efforts of his rival without any strong conviction to close such a big and lucrative shoe conclusively. The fight did not live up to the hype of being the best in the history of the sport. One only needs to take a close look at fights like Mohammed Ali’s rumble in the jungle, or his 3 fights with Sonny Liston, Nigel Benn’s fight with Eubank, Lennox Lewis’s fight with Vitali Klitschko, the list can be proliferated without end. Now Mayweather is planning to leave the sport once his contract runs out in September, after what he insists will be his last fight. He is earmarked to be giving Cotto- a man who tested Mayweather seriously 6 years ago- a chance of a rematch in order to claim championship in a sixth division.
His announcement that his victory over Pacquiao was his penultimate fight before retirement, indicates his plans to evade a clash with Amir Khan, even though the Bolton boxer is currently leading the queue of contenders who can give the American a close examination of the legacy he hopes to establish when he actually leaves the sport It is most pertinent to point out that whilst many will favour Mayweather to defeat Khan, the latter has the adequate level of speed to give Mayweather the fight of his career. Khan’s hands are as phenomenally quick as his feet. The widely held perception that Khan has a glass jaw may be a purely narrow perception of the reality, since Khan has been knocked out by bangers, and only an extra ordinary chin can survive the accurately delivered spot on blow by a banger. Furthermore, Khan’s two knockout defeats may not provide a reasonable guide as to what will transpire in the ring between Khan Mayweather, who is more a technician and defensive master, than he is any sort of banger.
The filthy rich American multi-weight champion will be surely favoured by many to brush Khan away without much problem, but the unbeaten brash self promoter know too well that the contrast of styles between himself and Khan gives the Brit a higher chance of success, even if on points, than most of the challengers who who have applied to capture of one Mayweather’s belts in the past. A second victory over Cotto, the Puerto Rican who who brings aggression and tenacity to the table will ostensibly extend Mayweather’s greatness on paper to a degree, and also mark him as matching Rocky Marciano’s unbeaten 49 fight record undefeated as a fighter. Notwithstanding, the mere fact he refuses to break that record by having just one fight, will be an inevitable detraction from any legacy he hopes to stamp. A fighter must fight the best at all times, if he is to be remembered as the best. The common perception among many boxing insiders is that Mayweather is simply building operating with business objectives at the fore of his fight plans, whilst subordinating the need to establish a legitimate glorious career devoid of any real suspicions that he carefully orchestrated his achievements, albeit against some top opposition.
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