ANALYSIS/OPINION:
LAS VEGAS — Like the great George Foreman once said, “Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.”
Floyd Mayweather fights like Miles Davis, but it is a Kenny G world these days — devoid of style, ignorant of artistry, an audience of simple minds watching the sweet science.
There were a lot of angry people who were $100 lighter after watching Mayweather surgically take apart Manny Pacquiao on his way to a unanimous decision in their much-anticipated 12-round showdown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night.
They paid to watch Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran I.
Instead, they got Leonard-Duran II. Pacquiao, instead of declaring “no mas” halfway through the fight as his opponent picked him off at will, told everyone after the fight that he had torn a muscle in his right shoulder while training. According to his promoter, Bob Arum, Pacquiao was unable to get an anti-inflammatory shot in the dressing room before the fight to calm the injured shoulder because they failed to inform the Nevada Athletic Commission that Pacquiao had been injured.
Arum said the injury flared up in the third round.
“We felt the work that was done on the shoulder during training would give him the opportunity to use the right hand,” Arum said. “We were disappointed when in the third round the injury kicked up again, but this is always the case in sport. … He heals the injury, thinks he’s conquered it and it flares up again.”
If that is the case, then you would have thought that when Pacquiao came back to his corner in the third round, the subject of his injured shoulder would have come up between he and his trainer, Freddie Roach. You would think at some point in between rounds for the rest of the fight, Roach would have asked about the shoulder.
No such conversation is believed to have been caught during the broadcast — though, if you took a drink every time Pacquiao or someone from his camp mentioned the word “shoulder” after the fight, you would have been drunk enough to soften the blow of being out $100 for the record-setting pay-per-view.
Please, no mas.
If all of this is true — and if it truly affected Pacquiao’s performance — then your anger should be directed at him, not Mayweather, for taking your money under false pretenses. Pacquiao should be able to cover the deductible on any doctor’s bills with the $100 million-plus he took in for the night’s work.
This fight unfolded the way it would have always unfolded — Mayweather controlling the action in the ring and dictating the space and the pace. A pain-killing shot would not have made Pacquiao’s arms grow longer to take away Mayweather’s six-inch reach, which allowed Mayweather to tattoo Pacquiao’s face all night with his left jab and then feed him the right hand when Pacquiao tried to shorten the distance.
Mayweather was clearly bigger and stronger before the fight, and no Lidocaine was going to change that. He was a true welterweight who had already defeated men bigger than him — Canelo Alvarez, the next young hotshot fighter, with ease, as well as Marcos Maidana.
Pacquiao built his second career as a welterweight on wins over washed-up fighters like Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton — both after Mayweather had beaten each fighter — and a victory over a still-damaged Miguel Cotto from the beating he took at the plaster-wrapped hands of Antonio Margarito.
The year that Pacquiao fought De La Hoya as a welterweight in 2008, he started the year fighting as a super featherweight — a 17-pound jump.
Most fighters who were big punchers at 130 pounds don’t remain big punchers at 147 pounds — at least not with that rapid a rise.
So, what now? Mayweather, at the age of 38, with his 48-0 record, insisted he will fight just once more, in September, the last fight of his Showtime contract, If he wins, he has said he will not pursue another fight to go for 50-0 and break heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano’s coveted 49-0 career mark.
“But I contradict myself a lot,” he said after the fight.
As far as boxing, it now goes back to becoming a side dish after a brief fling as the entree on the American sports plate. Maybe it’s just as well. The world has changed since the public last paid attention, when Mike Tyson was a convicted rapist and welcomed back as heavyweight champion. Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, which includes serving two months in jail after beating the mother of three of his children, drew the ire of the public in this post-Ray Rice age.
He will perhaps fight one more time, content to disappear back into the sports shadows, earning perhaps $80 million for his next fight instead of the $200-plus million he was expected to be paid for Saturday night. (Mayweather waved around a $100 million check for all to see at the post-fight press conference.)
Pacquiao, 36, is the vanquished hero, still beloved by the public, with more lucrative paydays ahead for him as well, having restored his honor in the minds of his fans with the shoulder roll he used to deflect the loss to Mayweather.
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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