SONAHR: LAS VEGAS, Nevada – September 13, 2015 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. accomplished his mission on Saturday night. His objective was to garner Win No. 49, with no defeats, matching the record of 1950s heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano. His opponent, Andre Berto, a former welterweight champion whose best days are well behind him, performed exactly as expected ? futilely.
The judges? scorecards read 117-111, 118-110, and 120-108. Anyone expecting a miracle upset a la Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson, or at least a soul-stirring underdog effort a la Rocky Balboa?s fictional war of attrition against Apollo Creed in the first Rocky movie, came away disappointed. The Berto fight went exactly the way Mayweather wanted it to ? risk-free and one-sided, a 12-round sparring session.
The fight, such as it was, turned out to be an anticlimax to an anticlimax. The first anticlimax occurred on May 2, when Mayweather crossed gloves with Manny Pacquiao in the richest superfight of all time. Floyd won easily, and some boxing fans are still grumbling over Pacquiao?s non-disclosure of the shoulder injury he carried into the ring that night.
After the Pacquiao encounter, Mayweather said he would fight one more time, then retire. He also said he would be discarding his collection of alphabet-organization championship belts prior to his finale. But he went back on his word in the latter matter. His WBA and WBC welterweight titles were indeed on the line when he faced Berto.
Which leads to the next question: Will Mayweather stay retired? Fans have not forgotten that he hung up his gloves once before, in 2007, after knocking out Ricky Hatton. Floyd came back 21 months later to handily outpoint Pacquiao nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez, and then engage in a five-year breakdance of negotiations and accusations that finally led to his showdown with the Filipino superstar.
The circumstances are different for Mayweather?s second retirement, though. He has no mountains left to climb. Yes, there?s a group of established and rising welterweights such as Timothy Bradley, Kell Brook, Amir Khan, and Keith Thurman who would like nothing better than to cash in on the Mayweather money machine. But none of those worthies match the stature Pacquiao held before May 2. Beating one or more of them would add little to Mayweather?s legacy, while a loss to any one of them would demolish his claim to be ?The Best Ever.?
And, when all is said and done, the ?0? in his loss column is more meaningful to Floyd than all the world titles he has accumulated since his professional career began during the late 1990s. The ?0? is why he chose a big-name no-hoper like Berto to be his partner in his last dance. The ?0? is why he avoided such dangerous potential opponents as Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams, and didn?t fight Shane Mosley until ?Sugar Shane? was past his prime. The ?0? is what Mayweather will shove into the faces of those who argue that his accomplishments are no match for those of all-time greats like Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Willie Pep or Henry Armstrong, all of whom suffered multiple defeats over the course of their careers.
And the ?0? is why Floyd ?Money? Mayweather Jr. will never fight again ? unless he runs out of money.
