By Scott Gilfoid: British boxing fans will be getting a real great deal in being able to see the May 2nd fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao for a mere £19.95, which is around $30 bucks in American cash. That’s a good deal considering that Americans will likely have to fork over $90 to $100 to see the fight, which as of yet doesn’t have what I consider a quality fight on the undercard.
Sky won the bidding to show the fight in the UK on Sky Box Office pay-per-view.
As of now, the under consists of Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Gamalier Rodriguez and Jesse Hart vs. Mike Jimenez. I personally have no interest at all in seeing of those fights.
For $100, I’d like to think that the undercard of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight would be far better than this. The main event is a good one despite it being six years overdue, but it looks like they scrimped on the undercard in a major way. Lomachenko is a good fighter, but he really should be fighting either Jhonny Gonzalez, Guillermo Rigondeaux or Nicholas Walters on a PPV card as expensive as this.
The Sky team will have Johnny Nelson, Jim Watt and Adam Smith covering the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight as the commentators. It’s possible we could see a few former and/or current fighters also giving commendatory about the fight.
“This fight has everything and is set to be one of the biggest sports events of the year,” said Barney Francis, Sky Sports managing director via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “As the home of boxing in the U.K. and Republic of Ireland, we’re thrilled to be awarded the rights. We’ll provide Sky Sports viewers with the best possible build-up across our channels and outlets and the best coverage of the fight itself from our team in Las Vegas.”
The Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight is a truly 50-50 affair that could go either way. Both guys have aged, and aren’t the same fighters they were six years ago when they first discussed the idea of facing each other. Pacquiao is still as aggressive as he was back then, but he is slower and doesn’t move nearly as well as he did back then.
Mayweather is more of a stationary fighter now compared to back in 2009, and for that reason he’s easier to hit. If both fighters stay in the pocket for the full 12 rounds of the fight, then I see Pacquiao winning handily just based on his superior work rate alone. But if Mayweather can use the mobility that he used to have back in 2009, then Pacquiao doesn’t have a chance. He’ll not be able to land against the taller, longer and quicker Mayweather.
It’s debatable whether the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will be an entertaining one. I think Mayweather is going to play it safe and choose to box Pacquiao rather than slug with him. Mayweather tried slugging with his last opponent Marcos Maidana in their two fights, and it didn’t work out too well for Mayweather.
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