By Dan Ambrose: Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) paid Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao a huge compliment this week when he told the media that he sees him as his best win over his 20-year-old pro career. It’s indeed a big compliment because Mayweather has beaten a huge amount of fighters that were incredibly talented who arguably gave him more problems than Pacquiao did last May in their record-breaking fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight brought in 4.3 million pay-per-view buys on HBO and Showtime. Unfortunately for the many boxing fans that paid to see the fight, it was less than a thrilling affair compared to Mayweather’s more exciting fights against the likes of Marcos Maidana, Miguel Cotto, Jose Luis Castillo, Shane Mosley, Diego Corrales, and Oscar De La Hoya.
“This [t-shirt] is in honor of my 48th victory, which is the most important of my career,” Mayweather said to the media via gmanetwork.com. “A lot of people said that I avoided this fight. A lot of people said that I couldn’t win the fight. But I proved all of that was wrong, and therefore the fight against Manny Pacquiao is the most important for me.”
I think Mayweather’s compliment of Pacquiao was more based on the magnitude of the fight rather than how competitive the fight was in comparison to some of his tougher fights. There’s no way that you can say that Pacquiao gave Mayweather more problems than Maidana and Castillo in their first fights. You also can’t say that Pacquiao gave more problems than De La Hoya and Cotto, because both of those fights were far more competitive and exciting than the Pacquiao fight.
Pacquiao is a good fighter, to be sure, but the effort that he gave in the Mayweather fight was less than what you would have liked to have seen from a fighter at the top level of the sport. You can give Pacquiao a break because he didn’t have game where it needed to be for that fight due to him coming into the fight with a torn up right shoulder that limited what he did in the ring.
The combination of Pacquiao’s visible decline due to age and his shoulder injury kept Mayweather from getting the credit that he would have received under different circumstances. I’m sure Mayweather wasn’t overjoyed to hear Pacquiao taking the credit from him for his victory by saying that he came into the fight with an injury to his shoulder. What further hurt the win for Mayweather was Pacquiao and many of his boxing fans saying that he deserved the win over Mayweather. By Pacquiao not admitting that he was beaten, it further tainted Mayweather’s victory even more than Pacquiao’s shoulder injury did.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing that Mayweather could get from fighting Pacquiao a second time other than a big payday. Beating Pacquiao again would prove nothing because the boxing fans would say that he was too old at this point in his career to beat Mayweather. Further, there would always be the potential of Pacquiao saying that he came into the fight with another injury of some sort that limited the things that he was able to do in the fight. Pacquiao could also do the same thing that he did last time by saying he felt that he deserved the victory rather than Mayweather.
I personally think Mayweather’s best win of his career was against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, because he not only was in his prime but he also had a huge weight advantage over him. Mayweather was basically fighting a light heavyweight in that fight and he made it look easy in winning the contest. Beating Pacquiao was the best win for Mayweather in terms of the money that he got from the fight, and because of the fan interest the fight generated. But I think the much more important win was over De La Hoya’s red rooster Canelo because it was such an important win for Mayweather because he was giving away so much in the size department.
Like I said, if Mayweather fought Pacquiao years ago, I think the win would have resonated more with the fans. Mayweather should have fought Pacquiao from 2008 to 2010, because that was when he was at his best.
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