Mayweather v Pacquiao: 'Mayweather held all the aces'

Many people thought Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao would be one-sided. But not that one-sided.

Mayweather did what he almost always does in making it look easy, sailing to a wide unanimous decision without much fuss. Evander Holyfield was right: hype alone does not a great fight make.

Mayweather's father and trainer, Floyd Sr, said it best: "He's almost too good for his own good."

So while the boxing purists were saluting Mayweather's genius, social media was throbbing with people calling him boring. There was even anger, with many feeling they had somehow been cheated.

One man's genius is apparently another man's sissy. "I thought he ran very well," quipped Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach. He was being disingenuous. A seven-time trainer of the year, he recognises greatness.

Mayweather didn't even have to unleash all of his weaponry. For most of the fight his jab and right cross sufficed. Only when Pacquiao was a wounded bull in the final few rounds did the American unveil the check hook and uppercut.

"I thought Manny should have won a lot of rounds because he was the aggressor," said Roach, being disingenuous again. Being aggressive without much education is rarely sufficient to win boxing matches.

And anyway, Pacquiao wasn't aggressive enough. Mayweather actually threw more punches - 435 to 429 - and landed with 39% of them, compared to 19% for his opponent. But because Mayweather was throwing on the back foot, people were fooled into believing he sucked the life out of the fight.

Exactly what Roach's vaunted masterplan consisted of was difficult to fathom. Coming forward in straight lines and not attacking from angles, Pacquiao proved too easy to hit. Mayweather landed with 67 jabs, to Pacquiao's 18.

Afterwards, Pacquiao claimed his right shoulder popped in the third round. He said he had been hiding the injury for three weeks, so people are well within their rights to ask why they shelled out their hard-earned money to see Mayweather take apart a wounded man.

But given the fight was five years in the making and given the sheer size of the show, it was absolutely inconceivable that the fight might have been cancelled.

(BBC)