Mayweather vs Pacquiao

[eyenon15]

I was once more than a casual fan. The fight to me looked like a sport that's aware of its own demise. fighters are more aware of long term damage to the brain.

It just looked like 2 older guys who have wised up and were boxing for a paycheck rather than risking too much for a win.

I don't think its a premium sport that deserves that kind of price tag anymore

[Jaime L]

I expected the same thing and got what I expected. I appreciate what Floyd can do. But only boxing fans will. I get how casual fans will not like it.

Yeah, it was the first event in 20 years to draw in casual fans due to having a decade to learn about the two fighters involved and sporadically witness/hear of their greatness. I'm not a big boxing guy but I am a sports fan. I'll watch anything that has big stakes and inherent drama and I love the possibilities boxing presents. But this was a dog. Felt like they could have gone 20 rounds and still have no memorable moment, still have both boxers being no worse for the wear.

Also, I appreciated what Seattle's D did in that Superbowl vs. Denver but I'm not gonna call that a great sporting event.

[polishgenius]

I wasn't here on fight weekend but I'm gonna be pretentious and offer up my thoughts in handy really-long-post form.

Thoughts on the actual fight:


I was, like a lot of people let down, even though I wasn't expecting an all-out slugfest, but the people blaming it on Mayweather, frankly, weren't watching properly. He hugged a bit, sure, but not excessively so especially considering how Pacquiao was constantly running into him. Accusations of running are laughable- he spent most of the time in center ring hitting Pacquiao first, ffs. The times when he did go backwards were the times when Pac-man had success, because for all his reputation, Mayweather's footwork isn't that good and he tends to go in straight lines.

The reason it was disappointing was that Pacquiao brought nothing. He had no apparent gameplan, he was just running at Mayweather in straight lines. Which is a shocking display considering that Pacquiao doesn't normally do that, so it seems like it was a deliberate decision to try to physically bull through a bigger man. Like he saw Maidana do it and thought he could do that better.



Thoughts on 'boxing is dead':

Nonsense. Nonsense in every particular. Dividing it into subreasons:

'Boxing is dead because Mayweather is defensive and this is apparently a new thing'

As has been pointed out, defensive boxers are not a new thing. I disagree that Ali was basically the same- they were both outfighters, sure, but there's plenty of different ways to outfight and where Mayweather lives and dies on bringing the pace of a fight down to his ideal, Ali was quite happy to roll with what the opponent set- but defensive maestros have been a thing all the way back to Peerless Jim 100+ years ago. Mayweather might be the first time a truly defensive boxer was the biggest draw, but there's plenty of huge huge names known for their defence. The legendary Willie Pep and the time he allegedly won a round without throwing a punch,

, Sweet Pea Whitaker... Somehow, boxing didn't die before. It won't die now.

'Boxing is dead because casuals don't watch it anymore and that fight will have put them off even more'

That might be true in America. It's not true in the rest of the world, where there are big swathes where boxing is huge. Much of Europe, South and Central America, big chunks of Asia... It does create an odd position where the States are still the center where everything runs through but it's a smaller deal there than elsewhere, but while the sport might change, to accomodate, it's never going to die.
In addition to this, the success or otherwise of Al Haymon's attempts to bring boxing back to free-to-air TV are far more likely to be important to the long-term future of boxing in the US than this one fight, however big. Yeah, the fight might kill PPV, but that's a good thing.

'Boxing is dead because there are no action fights anymore'.

Listen, there's plenty of casual fans who have no interest in watching more boxing than the occasional hyped mega-fight and that's fine by me. But there are people saying this who claim to actually care and want to watch boxing and, well... if you can't find good fights or aggressive, attacking, skillful and exciting fighters to watch that's on you, not the sport. The heavyweights are a bit shit, granted, but from Kovalev all the way up at light-heavy, through the likes of Golovkin, Canelo, all the way down to Roman Gonzalez, Juan Fransisco Estrada and Naoya Inoue at Flyweight/Super-flyweight, there's plenty of excitement to be had. I'd suggest anyone interested start with Canelo Alvarez vs Chris Kirkland this weekend- it's on regular non PpV HBO, I gather, and with Canelo's attacking intent and Kirkland's complete unpredictability it should be fun.

And anyone complaining that there's no blood, thunder and pain in today's boxing who isn't watching Golovkin is working from incomplete data.

Last year was shit and there was plenty of rightful handwringing. But that was caused by politics, not the quality of the fighters themselves, and there's plenty of indication that we're heading in the right direction. This year is already much, much better.



On Mayweather's place in the all-time pantheon: well, he's in there, but he's nowhere near right up there. His resume is stronger than is sometimes made out, but there's an undeniable element where he used his ability to dictate terms to pick the right matchups at the right times and in the right weight-classes to favour him.

Add to that, out of the four defensive maestros of this generation, I'm not convinced you can say with 100% certainty he was the best. He's definitely a more skilled fighter than Bernard Hopkins, and imo more fun to watch generally, but for me Hopkins' achievements in the sport are more impressive. Guillermo Rigondeaux is in his class, though he doesn't have nearly Mayweather's luck and skill in terms of promoting himself and thus will probably always have a slightly bare resume unless things change really fast later this year, when his contract with his manager runs out (Rigondeaux's dismantling of a prime Donaire is better than any single fight on Floyd's resume, though). And Andre Ward is probably the best of the lot and if he gets back to his game and in the next couple of years beats Golovkin and Kovalev I don't think I'd hesitate to rate him above Mayweather, even though he's way, way more boring in and out of the ring and will never be a world star.



tl;dr: most of you are wrong. :P

[Mark Antony]

Great post Polish

[polishgenius]

Thanks. :P

Shame it was past the sell-by date of anyone caring about the fight anymore. :(

[Maithanet]

Thanks. :P

Shame it was past the sell-by date of anyone caring about the fight anymore. :(

Your post was like a microcosm of the fight as a whole.

[polishgenius]

Well harsh.

[Maithanet]

Coulda been a contender.

[polishgenius]

Never went down, Ray.