makes me sad that a lot of people with a casual interest in boxing will now be turned off it by this shithouse of a fight - especially when this was never going to be a particularly entertaining fight and shouldn't have been hyped as such.
i hope so much that we can draw a line under this for once and all, and that boxing can start to heal from the wounds inflicted upon it by mayweather in particular. his low risk (both in terms of matchmaking and his actual in-ring style), protect your 0, boxing-as-business mentality has fucked this sport hard over the past few years, motivating more young fighters to follow in his stead and discouraging many of the best available fights from taking place (in just the past couple months alone we've had the likes of canelo cotto and khan brook not happen solely because of parties looking for a mayweather payday). floyd is a wonderful technician and defensive fighter but i don't consider him remotely good for the sport and i'll be very happy when he finally retires.
i don't buy into this narrative that boxing is dying (a narrative that's been peddled for literally a century), and i still have hope that it'll be more healthy 5 years down the line than it is now. we're currently in a transitional phase with nearly all the top p4p guys well into their 30s, and we really need a lot of these guys cleared out - mayweather foremost among them - so the sport can pass into a new and fresh generation. there is a LOT of outstanding talent coming through - lomachenko, who some of you hopefully saw on the undercard, is among them, although he's not exactly gonna be a crowdpleasing star either. point being, forget about floyd pac for a moment (or, please, a lifetime) and there's plenty to be excited about in this sport's future, so i implore folks not to judge it based on this atrocity.
here's some further viewing for folks whose interest HAS been piqued:
floyd
mayweather vs. corrales - the shared record of these two was 57 wins, 0 draws and 0 losses. ring magazine's pound for pound list had floyd at 7 and corrales at 5, behind only oscar, roy jones, trinidad and mosley. corrales was also the much bigger man, and so floyd went into this as an underdog in many people's eyes. consensus tends to regard this as the best win of floyd's career. one of the very very few times when floyd beat an elite fighter in their prime.
mayweather vs. castillo 1 - a fight many consider to be floyd's first and only loss.
castillo vs. corrales I - the two above opponents fight their great epic. this fight is widely regarded as the best of the '00s.
pac
barrera vs. morales I - two mexican superstars begin their legendary rivalry in a fight generally regarded as one of the best three of the decade (only after castillo corrales above, and ward gatti I).
pacquiao vs. barrera I - after winning titles in asia at flyweight, pac decides to move up multiple weight classes and try to conquer america. not long after winning his first title in a fight he took with only a couple weeks notice, he steps up into the big time vs. a legend who's still arguably in his prime.
pacquiao vs. morales I - ...and then he faces the other mexican legend, barrera's great rival erik morales. this is one of my personal favourite fights of the 21st century.
i can't imagine anyone watching the last four fights in particular and not feeling the magic at least a little.
