LAS VEGAS ? The people who paid $99.95 to watch at home had no clue.
Neither did those spending $40,000 or more for a ringside seat Saturday night in Las Vegas….
And, surely, the bettor who wagered $500,000 at the MGM Grand sports book on Manny Pacquiao to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. wasn?t in the loop.
They all thought they were getting the Fight of the Century. Two fighters who, if not in their prime, were at least in peak condition for the fight of their lives.
What they got instead was a one-armed Pacquiao chasing Mayweather around the ring for 12 rounds. The Filipino, who normally is a punching machine, landed only 18 right jabs and didn?t even throw as many punches as the defensive-minded Mayweather.
His shoulder had been injured in training. Injured so badly that Pacquiao will undergo surgery this week for a rotator cuff tear.
Yet the fight went on. No one outside the Pacquiao camp knew until two hours before the fight, when his handlers unsuccessfully sought permission from Nevada boxing officials for a shot of Toradol, an anti-inflammatory used to treat acute pain.
Fighters are tough guys. They often enter the ring not 100 percent because in boxing it?s an unwritten rule that the fight must go on.
But this was different. This was the richest fight ever, a boxing match so big that the fighters were getting paydays that rivaled the gross domestic product of some developing countries.
This was a fight so hugely anticipated that it demanded the best of both fighters.
?I wanted to be more aggressive, but it was hard for me to fight (with one hand),? Pacquiao said.
It?s hard to blame Pacquiao, even if he lied a day before the fight when he checked the ?no? box on a commission form asking him if he had a shoulder injury. He had the weight of an entire country on his shoulders, and he badly wanted to fight.
The people around him, though, are another matter. They knew their fighter was damaged goods, but sent him into the ring anyway.
The stakes were too high. The money was too big. The richest fight ever had to go on.
?Athletes always fight hurt,? promoter Bob Arum said the night of the fight. ?We felt the work that was done on the shoulder during training would give him the opportunity to use the right hand. He deals with the injury and thinks he conquered it and it was reinjured again. Happens in football and every sport.?
The problem for Pacquiao?s camp wasn?t in keeping Mayweather in the dark about the injury.
That?s fair game in boxing, where there?s little advantage in letting an opponent know about any weakness.
But no one told Nevada boxing officials. They were blindsided when, just before the fight, Pacquiao?s handlers asked if it was OK for their fighter to get a shot to deaden the pain in his shoulder.
By then it was too late. Allowing the shot without knowing exactly what the injury was would have put Mayweather at a disadvantage, at the very least.
Nevada boxing regulators thought they had done everything possible to ensure a fair fight, but ended up being snookered instead.
FANS FILE SUIT; REMATCH IN ?16?
A class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of two Las Vegas residents against Manny Pacquiao, his manager and his promoters for fraudulently concealing his injury before his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Las Vegas, seeks $5 million in damages on behalf of everyone who bought tickets or a pay-per-view package or even wagered money on the fight ? a number plaintiffs say is in the hundreds of thousands.
Las Vegas promotion company Top Rank Inc., the company?s president Todd Duboef, treasurer Bob Arum, and the boxer?s adviser Michael Koncz, also are named in the suit.
After saying there would be no rematch, Mayweather appears to want one now in 2016.
Mayweather sent a text message to media ally Stephen A. Smith, of ESPN, about giving Pacquiao ?another shot in a year.?
? From wire reports
