Mayweather is the most boring champion of all time. Every fighter who comes against him thinks “I’ll try something new! I’ll just keep coming at him and wont let him get away. I’ll* make* him fight back!” And then it goes to the judges and they wonder how they lost.
Anyone close to Mayweather’s weight isn’t nearly strong enough to overpower the “elbows up, keep stepping back, hug him when it looks like he might actually be about to hit you, and run down the clock” style that Mayweather has perfected. He’ll either retire undefeated, or lose to someone 15 years younger than him.
You have to give it to the guy; he has discipline, and he knows how to win. And judging by the money everyone keeps making, he isn’t costing the sport any fans.
No offense but do you have any idea the incredibly high level of skill it takes to be both as elusive and accurate as Mayweather is? In terms of skill he is probably the best fighter ever, I think the only one who could even challenge him for that title is Sugar Ray Leonard.
No shit. When they advertise a 9:00 fight I don’t expect to still be watching at 12 fucking 45.
Manny didn’t do enough with the couple of times he had Mayweather buttoned up. Didn’t take any advantage when Mayweather was acting kind of cocky and open either.
Oh well, I enjoyed the opening bout. That Ukrainian went to frigging work.
Mayweather used to be a much more offensive fighter. Look at this compilation and look at his record. Even in the past however most of his knockouts were TKO, fighter could not continue, not, fighter was knocked out cold on the mat. (on the chart KO vs TKO is listed on the far right for each fight)
I wasn’t trying to say he was unskilled. I was just pointing out that in the hundreds of rounds of professional boxing he has done, he can’t fill a five minute reel of exciting highlights.
I’ll be the unpopular ass here and say that I kinda blame the lack of excitement on Pac- I always knew that Mayweather was going to do exactly what he did-- I was sort of counting on the Pacquiao side to come up with a plan to bring in the excitement, and that’s what the fight lacked.
Are you 100% sure? Before you said that I would of said I was at least 90% sure that a couple decades ago, all same category punches scored the same, regardless of how hard the punch was. But maybe I’m wrong.
Didn’t they switch 10 to 20 years ago to scoring rounds 10/9, 10/8, 10/7, etc, and whoever wins the most points this way winds the fight, but in the past it wasn’t scored round by round but was a sum total of points derived from the punches landed in the fight?
You’re thinking of amateur/Olympic boxing, which for about 20 years was scored by punches landed, but recently returned to a 10 point must system. Pro boxing has never used a punches landed system.
Actually, I was thinking of professional sports but I was obviously mistaken. I was unaware that the amateur had swapped back to a 10 point system. At my old gym there was a Russian coach who had great fighters in the Golden Gloves but did poorly with his professional fighters. His style emphasized jab over power punches.
Kind of off-topic, but I’m going to go ahead and disagree.
It’s a popular opinion that the guy with the more “effective” (i.e. stronger) punches should get extra consideration on the scorecard because he hits harder. I think this outlook skews things too far in favor of power punchers.
If we simplify things and break fighters into two broad categories – boxers vs. punchers, technicians vs. heavy-hitters – there are so many natural advantages that accrue to the puncher:
– His opponent must be extra-wary of leaving himself open, and so must sacrifice some opportunities for offense.
– He may visibly hurt or wobble his opponent (which of course does matter on the scorecard), and which likely handicaps his opponent going forward.
– He may knock his opponent down, which, in addition to all the other reasons that it’s good, is huge on the scorecard, perhaps a 3-point swing (if it turns a 9-10 round into a 10-8).
– And, of course, he may simply win by knockout, preserving a chance of victory even in previously lopsided contests.
Going a step further and giving the power-puncher extra credit even for shots which do not visibly hurt his opponent just makes it unfair. Short of total domination or an unlikely knockout, how is the technician supposed to win against a comparably skilled puncher? It’s also almost totally subjective, and would depend largely on reputation.
The switch was from “round scoring” - the equivalent today would be if every round had to be scored 10-9. The first fight I remember being 10-Point Must was the first Ali-Leon Spinks fight in February, 1978.
As for “rules” for judging a fight, there aren’t any as far as I know, unless you count “unwritten” rules like “a round is scored 10-9 if there were no knockdowns, 10-8 if there was one, or 10-7 if there was two.” Things like “controlling the fight” and “ring generalship” are taken into account when determining who wins a round. When was the last time a major fight had any judge score any round 10-10?
In fact, the new rules for amateur boxing prohibit a judge from scoring a round 10-10. Speaking of which, rounds are now scored based on “number of quality blows on target area,” “domination of the bout by technical and tactical superiority,” “competitiveness,” “infringement of the rules,” and, of course, “political considerations.” Okay, that last one isn’t in the actual rules, but this is Olympic boxing we’re talking about; why should 2016 be any different from 1988 and before?
When Pac at the end of the fight during the interview said that he thought he won, did he mean “Mayweather’s fighting style doesn’t result in him actually doing anything to deserve a win, at least I tried, so I think I won” or was he saying “I thought I was ahead in the scoring, I was surprised that I wasn’t awarded the win?”
I assumed it meant the former. But then I was thinking the last 2 rounds should’ve been nothing but aggression and haymakers from Pac to try to KO Floyd, since he was behind in the scoring. Is it possible that his corner actually told him he was ahead, or it was close, and that’s why Pac played it fairly conservatively? Why would they do that?
Julio Caesar Chavez gave up in his corner recently and then said he thought he won the fight. It’s just part of boxing, generally with the loser thinking in his mind he’s proven himself the better fighter no matter how the fight actually turns out.
I think Pacquiao did all he could. This fight should have happened years ago when he could at least attempt to overwhelm Mayweather, but Manny is the smaller man, he’s had a long tough career, and at his age there wasn’t much chance he could get past Mayweather’s defense. It was all a foregone conclusion, another fight that came past it’s time. As usual it benefits the boxers greatly and the sport little.
just to be clear, in the old system you either won a round or you didn’t and who ever won the most rounds won the fight, essentially each round was treated as a 10-9, but now 10-9, 10-8, 10-7 etc is allowed?