UPDATE: Pacquiao suffers Shoulder Injury – As it turns out, Manny Pacquiao did suffer a torn rotator cuff injury during his camp that might indeed have hampered his performance.  However, he is an elite athlete who made the decision to fight despite his injury and should have lived with the consequences.  To tell the world, after he made this conscious decision to fool the world is unforgivable.  He owed it to the promoters, to the Mayweather camp and to all fight fans to inform them that he was injured and would require surgery to fix the problem.  We waited five years, we could have waited another year.  And if it never came off, so be it.  It would have been better.  Manny should be sanctioned and fined substantially for failing to reveal this performance restricting injury.  This farce was bad for boxing and he should be made to pay for that along with Freddie Roach who was unusually quiet following the decision.  He should never allowed Manny to fight which would have been in everyone’s best interest, especially Pacquiao’s.  What happened to a trainer, especially someone as close to his fighter as Roach is to Pacquiao, protecting his fighter?!  If Pacquiao had been in the ring with a serious contact fighter like a Keith Thurman, he could have been seriously injured, unable to defend himself.  Mayweather posed no such threat because he abhors physical contact. It will take boxing some serious time before it recovers from this injury, one it did not need to have and from one it will be difficult to recover.  Hopefully Kirkland-Alvarez will begin the process of healing.

When the final bell rang it was clear who had won but it was also clear that this so-called mega fight should never have happened after all.  The fight ended up being the worst case scenario.  Perhaps 5 years too late but it could not have been worse.  Mayweather did what he does best, the “safety first” “hit em hold” style and Pacquiao simply did not press the issue.  Manny needed to take Mayweather out of his comfort zone and instead allowed him to do what he always does. It would be difficult to even call this a fight.  It was more like a dance. The two fighters spent more time moving around the ring than engaging each other and that generally ends up being a dull affair.  It just goes to show that the best fighters don’t always end up making the best fights. If Pacquiao was going to win this fight he was going to need to throw between 800 and 1,000 punches.  That was clear.  He was also going to need to cut off the ring and trap Mayweather against the ropes throwing punches in bunches.  He did that exactly twice.  There is no question that Mayweather is a gifted athlete who has perfected his peek-a-boo style that allows him to do just enough to win.  But it’s also a boring, dull style which explains why he will never be counted among the greats of all time.  Sugar Ray Leonard fought Marvin Hagler in that same style back in 1987 but that fight lived up to and surpassed expectations.  Leonard thru 5 and 10 punch combinations repeatedly off of Hagler’s head.  Hagler, in response, was relentless.  That is still one of the greatest fights of all time. This fight on the other hand should not have happened not so much because it was a boring affair but because it was bad for boxing.  Anyone watching the fight who is not a true boxing enthusiast will not be coming back anytime soon.  At some point late in the fight, I had the sense that neither man was interested in beating up the other man but rather celebrating their good fortunes.  Both men would be sharing the richest pot in history, and would be laughing all the way to the bank.  And perhaps that was the biggest problem of all.  Win or lose, the take for both men was so high, that it didn’t really matter.  Never mind Mayweather’s “0” or Pacquiao’s pride.  At some point the money trumps all else.  Having something to fight for is a great incentive.  But when the greatest of the prizes is already assured, the rest is secondary. Floyd Mayweather is the smartest man in the history of sports.  He has built an empire on his great athleticism and boring style.  But he will retire a very, very rich man and will never have to worry about brain damage or any other physical issues that so often plague elite athletes.  I will not be tuning in to his next fight or any fights after that, as I know they will be boring affairs.  Simply a waste of my time.  Manny for his part should retire.  And both men should do boxing a favor and leave the sweet science behind sooner than later so we can move on and focus all our attention to the newest, greatest attractions like Kovalev, Thurman and GGG.  Thanks for the memories Manny.  Time to move on.