Manny Pacquiao was defeated by Floyd Mayweather on Saturday night, as the Filipino ultimately ran out of ideas and hope against his welterweight rival.
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The 36-year-old has long been touted as the only fighter that could cause Mayweather genuine problems as he had previously gone 47-0 through his professional career before this weekend.
However, Pacquiao quickly found out what makes the American so special as he was able to immediately keep the exchanges at his ideal range by taking the centre of the ring which prevented Pacquiao from marching forwards in order to get his combinations off.
Instead, Pac-Man was forced to stalk his rival and stay cautious in fear of being hit with heavy counter-punches and so Mayweather dictated the fight from the very start which put his opponent at an immediate disadvantage on the scorecards.
Little changed thereafter except a few glimpses of success for Pacquiao as he seemingly landed some punches which looked to have rocked his rival momentarily. However, it didn’t take long for Mayweather to re-gather himself and take control of the bout back.
While a significant amount of credit should be shown to Mayweather for his ability to take away Pacquiao’s strengths, it was still disappointing not to see more from the Filipino and trainer Freddie Roach.
The threat of a big right hand from Mayweather was always a concern and perhaps they were felt as the fight went on, but Pac-Man remained far too cautious down the stretch of the fight when he was behind on the scorecards and needed to take command of the fight.
His post-fight comments began sensibly as he criticised his rival for running too much, but his claims that he felt that he had won the fight were perhaps made more out of pride rather than realism.
However, there is no criticising Mayweather for his approach as that is what Roach should have planned for and come up with a strategy to overcome.
That is certainly easier said than done, something that Pacquaio found out on Saturday night, and his inability to get within range and let off a high volume of punches was ultimately his undoing and he trailed throughout the fight because of it.
Referee Kenny Bayless didn’t help matters as far as the former WBO welterweight champion is concerned, as Mayweather was able to get away with a lot of holding. While that was a concern prior to the bout, it wasn’t the only factor in the end result and had the official acted on it, it wouldn’t have made a decisive difference anyway.
It remains to be seen where Pacquiao goes from here, as although his super-fight with Mayweather failed to live up to expectations, he should still be proud of his effort and admit that he came up against a defensive genius whose code has yet to be broken after 48 fights.
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