Keidel: Pacquiao Was Simply Awful In Ugly Loss To Mayweather
By Jason Keidel
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Though it's my job to sprinkle faerie dust on the sweet science, to assure you that boxing is still indeed the sport that drains the adrenal gland like no other endeavor, you saw a dud on Saturday night.
Though he's quite tough to like personally, Floyd Mayweather's mastery over Manny Pacquiao is indisputable, and thus he's the undisputed champion of pugilism.
Over the last two days I've been asked just one question by the media and masses.
Why?
Why did Pacquiao, the dominant and dynamic champion who blew through opponents like a tornado, fight like he'd won before the opening bell? Why was there no urgency? Why was there no focus or fortitude? Why did he, for lack of a better characterization, quit halfway through the bout?
No one can say for sure, even yours truly, who has spent 12 hours a day over the last nine weeks working on this fight. But what is obvious, immutable truth is that the fight's dearth of danger does not fall on Mayweather Jr. Mayweather did what Mayweather does -- jab, counter, lead rights, measure his enemy with NASA precision.
For nearly 20 years, Mayweather has landed over 40 percent of his punches, while being hit by fewer than 20 percent of his opponents' punches. That's not an accident, and it's by far the best ratio of the modern era. PunchStat and CompuBox have been a metric since 1985, and since then, no one has approached Mayweather's efficiency or lack of deficiencies. Over the last 18 years, Mayweather has brought rocket science to the sweet science.
For the last two months, I wrote that in a fight with this kind of cash and cachet, you go with what got you in the right. And that in a bout with two supreme talents, you pick the safer, sounder fighter; the one with no losses, the one who doesn't need a knockout to win.
That was Mayweather Jr.
Like Teddy Atlas said, if you're born round you don't die square. We are what we are, and hence Pacquiao's charge was to overwhelm Mayweather with flurries, with his trademark, windmill punching volume. And, after the fourth round, he just stopped trying. That's not Mayweather's fault.
So the fight fell to an amalgam of factors. Pacquiao was way too casual, if not confident, entering the night. He's more than welcome to flaunt his pious personality, thank his deity for his dominance and bring Jimmy Kimmel into the ring.
But when the bell rung, he forgot who he was, what made him so singularly gifted and effective; why he was able to cash a nine-digit check on Monday. He was so friendly he forgot the frothing barbarism of boxing, and his role as its avatar. He was taking selfies with Mayweather, chiding Mayweather over his personality and punctuality. Then he backed it up with a benign boxing blueprint. It was awful.
Then there's Mayweather's role in the fight, and the night. While none of us believed him when he said this was just another bout, Mayweather indeed reduced Pacquiao to just another foe. It speaks to his brilliance, dominance and confidence.
Pacquiao was so frustrated by Mayweather's Matrix defense that he just stopped trying to break it. There was no Imitation Game to Mayweather's Enigma, no decoding Mayweather's defense. Like the 47 fighters before Pacquiao, victim No. 48 simply had no answer.
And let's stop with the shoulder stuff. Mayweather didn't win, and Pacquiao didn't lose, because of a lack of lidocaine or whatever panacea was supposed to be jammed into his joint. All fighters fight with physical maladies. We know the ancient sports axiom -- if you're hurt you don't play and if you play you're not hurt.
I watched the fight with iconic fighter Mark Breland, who has fought with concussions, broken ribs and cracked hands. If you've never fought hurt than you're not a fighter.
And the woeful excuses are antithetical to everything Pacquiao has been about -- nobility. Pacquiao's camp made this fight a ballot box on God and social graces. So don't back out of the public pact you've kept for the last decade.
But, in the end, the fight and the night moprhed into a referendum on Mayweather's mastery. His place in the pantheon is affirmed, even if you don't find it affirming.
Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel.
