by: Bryant “B-Boy” Worthing @bboyworthing
The fight that felt like took 100 years to finally happen happened. It was business as usual in sin city only with the most fight buzz of all time, and money implications like no other fight weekend.
The so called “fight of the century” was won by Floyd Mayweather over Manny Pacquiao by unanimous points after 12 high intensity rounds in the welterweight championship. The significance of this fight and all they hype surrounding it was based purely on the reputation of these two boxers being the best of their generation. Since 2009 it took years of on and off again negations to even get this fight done. The MGM Grand in Las Vegas was the focus of sports fans from around the world with many boxing purists saying this was the biggest boxing match since Ali vs Frazier in 1971. Not to mention the highest pay per view fight in cable history at a whopping $100 a pop which on its own generated many millions.
While the early rounds of this fight were evenly matched when the fifth came around it fell into a familiar Mayweather favored pattern featuring his defensive brand of boxing making Pacquiao miss. While Pacquiao found success in short bursts Mayweather proved why he is undefeated with great defense and solid scoring blows as each round came to an end. Pacquiao did land several good left hand punches, but by the time the eight round came around it turned into a chess match where Mayweather made him miss with Manny only landing 18% of his punches far less then his average of 34%. Mayweather is now 48-0 while Pacquiao falls to 57-6-2 all time.
The new question now is will these guys have a re match? If so, it will certainly not have the hype of the first one. However the business of boxing is very real. For example win or lose Mayweather was set to roughly make $200 million while Pacquiao sits at $120 million, on the flip side both of these guys are in their late 30s right now so the next possible fight is up in the air right now.
This weekend Las Vegas might have been the real winner, some estimates put the total revenue between $300-$400 million in the city. So regardless who people were rooting for they enjoyed the May weather.
