One word can be used to describe the Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather fight this past May 2nd. Underwhelming. This was supposed to be the most anticipated, the most exhilarating fight of the century, and it fell way flat. With all the hype leading up to this fight, viewers at the MGM, and at home were yearning for a knockout. What did they get? A 12 round hug and jab fest, which was not worth their $100 at home, and thousands of dollars at the MGM. It became apparently clear to me that Mayweather has one motive. Money. He does not love the sport of boxing, and he does not love to compete. Floyd Mayweather "fights" for his nine figure check. For every second that passed by, Mayweather made $83k. No wonder he dragged the fight out. If this fight was against anyone else, with any other circumstance, he would have gone for the KO. But his strategy for the entire fight, was to drag it out, and there are a few things that make me believe this.
1.Fight Style: Floyd played defense the entire night. Just by watching, I could tell he was running around, and one could say he fought scared. On several occasions, Pacman would work Mayweather into the corner, and begin to land a sequence of punches, culminating with one heavy left hook. Instead of fighting his way out, and landing a few return punches, Mayweather would slip out of the situation, and reboot the fight. That lack of offensive fire-power shows his lack of interest in the fight, in my mind. If Mayweather really cared about the fight, he would have gunned for Pacquiaos head, and left no mercy. On May 2nd, he jogged around, and gave the occasional hug. Seriously? Mayweather's lackluster fight style also restricted Manny from going after it. Because Floyd took Manny in for a tender hug everytime a 66 pound per punch fist was cocked for his head, Pacman couldn't fight like he normally would. Mayweather's cowardly fighting style made it impossible for Pacquiao to make any moves on Floyd.
2. Too Much Hype: This fight was five years in the making. Every TV station had a Mayweather vs Pacquiao commercial running. T-shirts were sold in large quantities. ESPN didn't even have coverage of the actual fight, but they moved their live SportCenter shows out to LA to have a week full of coverage for the fight. With all the anticipation for the fight, there needed to be a bloody match, where both men poured their heart and soul into the match, culminating in a knockout. To avid boxing fans, it may have seemed like a good fight. But the majority of the audience were not avid boxing fans, merely just people looking to see a good fight, potentially the fight of the century. Most people wanted to witness history, not a match where someone outboxed the other. All the hype leading up to it was too big.
This fight barely satisfied it's viewers. To be honest, I almost turned the fight off after two straight minutes of a black screen because Charter couldn't handle all of the traffic it was getting from its hundreds of thousands of Pay-Per-View buyers. And to be honest again, I was dissapointed in the fight as a whole. The week leading up to the fight was filled with hype, but the fight did not fulfill my hopes and dreams. This was my first, and probably my last boxing match I'll ever watch. Even IF there was the possibility for #MayPac2, I probably wouldn't even watch. MayPac1 might have ruined boxing for me.
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