On a night of many riches – from the "cheap" seats in the gods to the impossibly well-heeled gathering near the lit square below – Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao did their best to deliver the fight everyone wanted, and they almost got there.
The unanimous decision in favour of the American, received poorly in all sections of the rammed-solid MGM Garden Arena, hurt Pacquiao more than any of the 148 punches the plainly out-of-kilter HBO computer alleged had landed on him. Those purblind number crunchers also said Mayweather threw six more punches than Pacquiao's 429, as blind a call as I can remember in boxing.
The rest of the statistics, consequently, are not worth referring to. What we should do is trust our eyes. There were 16,800 pairs of them trained on the action in the ring, and millions more in 150 countries around the world for The Fight Of The Century, an event nearly six years in the making and 45 minutes in the execution.
At least we got a fight. Two years ago, one bookmaker posted 9-1 that it would ever be made. Not many disagreed – except we were not to know that Mayweather, in contradiction of his public teasing, was engineering a tidal-wave moment of his own creation, a delayed action extravaganza to wipe away the glamour and records of all that had gone before.
Nobody was immune from the excitement. Freddie Roach, the Filipino's trainer of nearly 15 years and his best friend, was moved to take a selfie as they walked to the ring. Pacquiao, as ever, did not stop smiling, thrilled by his personally recorded entrance music.
Empty streets
It was a genuine around-the-world event. In the Philippines, people tweeted pictures of empty streets and packed closed-circuit auditoriums. In Munich, Andy Murray, seeking his first clay-court title, posted a Twitter selfie with Arthur Abraham, the local boxing hero. His friend Amir Khan, so desperate to fight the winner of Saturday’s fight, was one of the few celebrities to score a comp in Vegas: a close-up seat worth probably $100,000, courtesy of Haymon, the adviser he shares with Pacquiao. The assembled ringside media experts – culled to a few hundred inside the arena from 18,000 applicants from around the world and grateful to be accommodated on seats that might have brought up to $100,000 on the secondary ticket market – buzzed throughout. Opinions were sought during the combat; some were answered above the din – and everyone had one. Mine didn’t accord with the judges.
Surely not the last
Mayweather’s 11th appearance in this arena, one of a career total of 15 but surely not the last, provided him with the result but not the performance he desired. He betrayed fatigue, physical and spiritual. The man dedicated to hard work would love a rest soon.
As he said in a pre-fight note to saddened members of his Money Team: “I cannot be your saviour forever, everything has to end some time.”
What about his calm fight-week demeanour, then? Was it nerves, apprehension or prescience? All three, most likely. He is a complicated genius – and a lucky one.
They arrived for fight week separately on Tuesday, with ballyhooed entrances at their favoured casinos, a mile apart, and left joined together in history. But only one guy was smiling, and this time there would be no beatific glow on the born-again Pacquiao. He, too, has paid his dues to the sport.
Pacquiao, Arum says, paid between $3 million (€2.7 million) and $4 million (what’s a million here or there?) on tickets for 900 of his Filipino supporters. Mayweather said he’d split $50 million between three of his four children. If anyone deserved at least a split decision last night it was Pacquiao. Guardian Service
