LAS VEGAS — Within the next few days, Floyd Mayweather could be a world champion for the last time. If so, he went out in style.
Mayweather controlled Manny Pacquiao in a long-awaited fight with great tactical appeal but precious few fireworks, then walked away with a check that was both real and symbolic: $100 million.
That’s $100,000,000.
“Nine figures, baby,” Mayweather said. “I’m thankful. I’m just just very, very thankful. I didn’t do it by myself. This dream started a long time ago. I didn’t do it by myself. Everybody played a major key, from my grandmother, to my father, to my fans and my family that believed in me first, before I got to this point.”
Mayweather (48-0) came into the fight saying Pacquiao wouldn’t be the defining moment of his career, and with potentially one fight left, he departed the fight with the same opinion.
“I think every fight played a major key,” Mayweather said. “Let me say it again, not just one fight define my career. Every fight was important to me, extremely important to me.”
The Grand Rapids native boxed cleverly and won 118-110 on Dave Moretti’s scorecard, and 116-112 on those of Burt Clements and Glenn Feldman.
He has five titles in two weight divisions after adding Pacquiao’s welterweight title to two he already had at 147 pounds. He also has a pair of titles at 154 pounds.
Floyd Mayweather: I was smarter, sharper than Manny Pacquiao Mayweather dissects his unanimous decision victory Saturday at MGM Grand. They’ll all be gone within the next few days, Mayweather said, as he abdicates every one of them and prepares to go into a planned September career finale for a 12-round bout with no championship at stake.
Mayweather said Pacquiao (57-6-2) was just another opponent, and while he expressed respect for the Filipino star, he treated him just that way.
“This was just another day at work,” Mayweather said. “The guy I fought in my third fight, I feel the same way about this fight right here. You guys were the ones that said this guy would beat Floyd, throughout the years, Floyd’s scared, Floyd’s a coward, Floyd’s a cheater.”
RELATED: MLive.com’s round-by-round scorecard
The fight took five years to make.
It took less than three minutes to take control. Mayweather sprinted to a 3-0 lead on the scorecards through the first three rounds, which were viewed as critical to Pacquiao. Floyd Mayweather grabbed control early against Manny Pacquiao. Cory Olsen | MLive.com
It was over almost before it started.
“I knew had him from round one. Round one,” Mayweather said. “I came out there to feel him out. I wanted to see his certain moves. I wanted to see his jab, because if he used his jab, I’m going to counter over his jab. If he uses his jab, I’m going to slide over and counter him with a pullover shot, and hit him with a jab. You see, everything is a calculated move.”
That included when Pacquiao landed the best punch of the fight, a left counter over a lazy Mayweather left in the fourth round.
Mayweather stumbled back into the ropes and covered.
“Even when he hit me with a real, real good shot, I took it, like, ‘You’ve been here before, you know what it takes. Just wait, wait, make him miss, then go down and touch the body, slow him up, slow him with the body shot, feint him, touch him with the jab,'” Mayweather said.
The trouble spot didn’t last long and Mayweather attributed it to ring rust.
“It’s just like this, when you’re in a contact sport, and you’re always engaging in battle, you can take a shot a lot better,” he said, “to whereas let’s you’re off six, seven, eight months, I get in a big fight and I get hit with a good shot, and I’m like, ‘Damn,’ and it wakes me up. And I’m like, ‘All right, now I know where we’re at.'”
Mayweather was left only with that complaint about his performance.
Pacquiao, according to his team, was rendered virtually a one-handed fighter by a pre-existing right shoulder injury that flared up during the bout.
Manny Pacquiao thinks he beat Floyd Mayweather Pacquiao says a shoulder injury prevented him for executing his entire game plan. Pacquiao’s camp said he used anti-inflammatories to control the injury during training camp but was denied the injection by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the fight.
“Two weeks before the fight, one week before the fight, my shoulder was getting better and better,” Pacquiao said. “It was never really 100-percent recovered but at least I did use it.”
He added that an MRI of the injury, which occurred three to four weeks ago different sources said, revealed a tear in his shoulder.
“It’s part of the game,” Pacquiao said. “I don’t want to make alibis or complain anything about that.”
Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, said his side briefly considered a postponement. But Pacquiao’s performances in sparring improved, he said.
“I don’t want to make reasons, what we have been through this training camp,” Pacquiao said. “But it was good, 12 rounds, I fought the fight, and I thought I won. But I have to review it.”
It was Pacquiao’s third loss in his last six fights.
“It doesn’t bother me that I lost right now because I fought a good fight, I did my best,” he said.
Mayweather might have to ponder that possibility someday, but the world is running out of chances to see it. Floyd Mayweather celebrates moving to 48-0. Cory Olsen | MLive.com
“I was born a winner, I’m going to die a winner,” he said. “I don’t really focus on winning. Like I’ve said before, I was brought up, in my family, all we knew was to be first. Whatever we did, it’s always about being first. That’s all I knew.”
He still adheres to it.
“What was instilled in my head, from day one, is still in there,” he said.
Mayweather said he “didn’t appreciate everyone making this, like, God vs. the devil” after his history of domestic cases, which he long has denied, offered a platform for demonstration. There were sporadic demonstrations on the MGM Grand property, but security officers disbanded them.
“I didn’t care to entertain it,” Mayweather said. “I believe in The Good Man just like he do.”
In the ring, there was no divine intervention. Just a superior boxer neutralizing a puncher.
“I always knew I was the more superior fighter,” Mayweather said. “I knew he was going to be tough. I knew he would be a tough competitor. But his footwork compared to my footwork was totally different. I kept using the check-hook, using the check-hook. Use the jab. When he got closer, tie him up, roughhouse him — of course, with my experience, roughhouse him — take him back to the center of the ring, box him, counter, jab, just being smart.”
Pacquiao’s aggression simply was too sporadic, though he said he hurt Mayweather “like three, four times.”
“I did my best. But my best wasn’t good enough,” he said.
Mayweather played the mental game, too. He hired strength coach Alex Ariza, who worked with Pacquiao until two years ago, and dangled that fact often.
“One of the chess moves that I made was I got Alex Ariza and I brought him over to my team, because I knew he that was a true asset for Manny Pacquiao,” Mayweather said. “I’m one of those guys that picks weakness. I think is this, I want to put any fighter at discomfort, in the most uncomfortable position possible, so that’s what put me in a most comfortable position and put him in a most uncomfortable position.”
Mayweather said Pacquiao often was “applying pressure but he wasn’t landing any punches.”
Pacquiao landed 81 of 429 punches. Mayweather landed 148 of 435.
That Mayweather landed a higher percentage was no surprise. That he led raw punches thrown doomed Pacquiao.
“When it’s all said and done, it comes down to the two competitors,” Mayweather said. “Manny Pacquiao is still a champion. I was the better man tonight, more calculating fighter.”
