The Guys’ Guy’s Thoughts on the Sham of the Century
Floyd Mayweather is a magician in the ring. And that’s the problem.
If I want to see someone run, hide, grab, hug, and disappear, I might as well buy a ticket to David Copperfield or Dancing With The Stars. Manny Pacquaio is a trusting soul. And that’s his problem. He works in the unregulated cesspool of a boxing industry and leaves important details like being injured before the fight to his slippery promoters to handle. We now know that he had a torn rotator cuff going into the fight. So why did his team not reveal his injury until afterwards? Money, that’s why. This is only the tip of the iceberg why this mega-hyped event was a sham that will send the sport of boxing back twenty years.
Many of us Guy’s Guys are boxing fans, so when this long overdue fight was finally announced in February, people all over the world were ecstatic. In one corner we had the slick, undefeated American with a bad reputation as a human being. Mayweather is an unrepentant, convicted women-beater. He’s also brash, arrogant, and greedy. And, he’s a peerless defensive wizard in the ring who has never lost a professional fight.
In the other corner we had PacMan, the born-again Filipino. Pacquaio is a fighter with an untarnished personal reputation. He has shown quickness, aggressiveness and courage in the ring and humility and generosity outside of it. We had a perfect bad guy versus good guy storyline for the fight. The prospects were even brighter from a tactical perspective. PacMan is a hard-working southpaw who usually throws one hundred punches per round. Mayweather is the slick tactician who focuses more on not getting hit than dishing out punishment to his foe. He is fast and elusive to a fault. The paying public wants to see two guys mixing it up, not dancing inside the squared circle. All in all, we had the makings of a classic matchup, even for the casual fan. Good guy versus bad guy. Lefty versus righty. Speed versus power. But, that’s not the way it turned out, amigos. Let’s take a closer look at the fight and the two combatants.
Mayweather – Make no mistake about it, this guyis lightning fast and elusive.He scooted around the ring and made keeping PacMan at bay look easy. Although I am a fan of the Filipino, there is no way PacMan won the fight, as some have suggested. That said; the problems with Floyd’s victory were many. First, he obviously knew that Pacquaio was damaged goods. He zinged him in torn rotator cuff and landed a number of lead right hands. But, he never hurt PacMan. Not even a little bit. The word is that Floyd’s team knew about Pacquaio’s injury beforehand. If true, why did Floyd devote most of his time running around the ring, grabbing and holding instead of exchanging and going in for the knockout? Some argue boxing is about scoring points and not getting hit. This is correct, but only to a point. Running, grabbing and holding tarnishes an already tarnished sport. No one wants to see this. Fans pay to see two professional combatants mix it up and inflict some damage. And, that’s what this fight lacked. There was little action. Ironically, the loser generated most of the action. PacMan slowly pawed his way around the ring while Floyd scored some light jabs and right hands and then ran or held his opponent in a headlock. From a viewing standpoint, this made the fight suck. I put that on Mayweather. Beyond his running to avoid contact, he proved once again to be a dirty fighter. He repeatedly clutched, grabbed and pushed down on PacMan. He also used his forearms, elbows, and sides of his gloves, all which are illegal tactics. And, Mayweather’s handpicked referee did nothing to stop the misconduct.
Pacquaio – Dude, if you are not at 100%, postpone the fight. PacMan lost a ton of cred by stepping into the ring in less than top condition and not letting us know. If you are hurt, you are hurt. Just say so. When you step inside the ring for a bout of this magnitude at anything less than 100%, you will be rightly accused of just taking the money. And, it’s understandable. Fans paid top dollar for the pay per view and bet big time on this fight. Pacquaio should have provided full disclosure. His team did not claim the shoulder injury on his prefight medical form, although they did cop to his taking painkillers throughout camp. Why did they do this? Why didn’t the state boxing commission ask about this? Who knows?
As a result, PacMan was denied a pre-fight dose of painkillers and even his Vitamin Water. Yet, we saw Mayweather drinking Gatorade. And only after the fight did the paying public find out PacMan had a torn right rotator cuff. Maybe this explains why PacMan threw far fewer punches than usual and appeared to coast through most of the bout. This did not look like the Manny Pacquaio than we have been accustomed to seeing in the ring. Some say it was because Mayweather is so much faster and skilled. That may be true to a point. But I think most people would agree that it appeared that something was wrong with PacMan from the very first round.
So with a trail of dissatisfied Guy’s Guys and fight fans left on the curb with $100 bucks less in their pockets, what else could be worse? The rematch, of course. See you in 2016.
This week’s Guys’ Guys of the Week are the two men who filed a class action suit about misrepresentation of PacMan’s status before the fight.
