By Yannis Mihanos: History repeated last Saturday night. History was repeated for the 48th time. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) is now officially and unofficially the undisputed king of boxing.
Last Saturday night he defeated his biggest enemy Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) by a wide unanimous decision and sealed his place in boxing history as one all-time great.
I will start this article by stating what I so much was waiting from this encounter:
What I expected from the fight was to see how Floyd will react facing a so talented and dangerous fighter like Pacquiao, how he would handle the pressure and how he would beat him.
On the other hand I wanted to see from Pacquiao how he would outmaneuver Mayweather and beat him.
To my disappointment Pacquiao didn’t fight the way I expected him to fight. The match wasn’t near as competitive and as entertaining as I had expected. So from a boxing fan’s perspective I was disappointed. As a Pacquiao’s fan I was disappointed even more.
I was expecting a nonstop freak (Pacquiao) chasing all around the ring Mayweather and hitting him with tremendous speed.
I was expecting Pacquiao to come out all guns blazing. That was my favorite fantasy scenario and stayed as such, because reality hit me in the head.
Pacquiao not only was shooting blanks but he was nowhere near to his glorious past performances while at the same time Mayweather meant for one more time business.
It was business as usual for Mayweather. Pacquiao couldn’t do anything out of the ordinary and lost the bout easier than anybody had ever expected.
Floyd Mayweather for the 48th time proved too much. Like a true matador wore down Pacquiao and drove him to defeat.
Pacquiao looked in the fight as one dimensional, as any other of Floyd’s previous opponents.
This was Mayweather’s statement to the world: That I’m the best of my generation.
Floyd Mayweather proved to the world why he is the genius when it comes to boxing.
Even if the first 6 rounds looked even everything worked as planned by Mayweather.
His great advantage that very few greats in the past had is his ability to study the opponent from within the ring.
That’s something that Pacquiao and all other 47 opponents could never do.
The term one dimensional comes from the simple fact that one is capable to do only one thing at a time.
But Floyd is definitely a maestro. Floyd is a fighter with more than one ability and an awareness that allows him to see beyond the normal settings, beyond the normal skills and eventually all this transcends into an ability to adapt at any occasion.
I have often attacked and accused Floyd as a methodic cherry-picker but after Saturday night I’m forced to reconsider my thoughts and basically eat my words.
I have nothing but good words to say for him and I wish him the happiest retirement.
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