Pacquiao’s one-sided loss makes it unlikely he’ll get rematch

By Boxing News - 05/03/2015 - Comments

pacmay2 (7)By Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach was hoping that Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) would get a second shot against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) in a rematch next September, but the one-sided nature of tonight’s fight makes that all but impossible for the two of them ever to meet again.

Mayweather left no doubt who the better man was tonight in defeating a clueless Pacquiao by a 12 round unanimous decision in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather said after the fight that he’ll be fighting just once more in September and then retiring from boxing.

“Manny Pacquiao is a tough competition,” A gracious Mayweather said after the fight. “He’s a true champion and we were both at our best tonight. My last fight is in September, then it’s time for me to hang it up. I’m almost 40-years-old now. I’ve been in the sport 19 years. I’ve been world champion for 18 years. And I’m really, truly thankful and blessed.”

I’m sure Pacquiao, Roach and his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank would like nothing better than to see a rematch take place between Pacquiao and Mayweather, but I don’t think the boxing public would go for the idea. The reason being it would seem too much like a money grab on the fighters and their promotional companies’ part, and I don’t think the fight would do nearly as well on pay-per-view. But besides that, I don’t think Mayweather will agree to a second fight simply because he won’t want to be seen as being greedy by fighting a guy that didn’t do enough to warrant a rematch. The fight was simply not a competitive one for there to be much of a demand for a rematch. The final scores bared that out with Mayweather winning 118-110, 116-112 and 116-112. It wasn’t nearly close enough.

Pacquiao, Roach and Arum may need to take their show in another direction towards a different opponent rather than looking to get a second fight against Mayweather because I don’t think it is happening. Arum will likely look to match Pacquiao up against the winner of the Tim Bradley vs. Jessie Vargas fight or put him back in with Brandon Rios for a rematch. I don’t know that the boxing public will stomach a second fight between Pacquiao and Rios, but I think that won’t stop Arum from making the fight anyway. We’ve seen some of the guys that he’s put in with Pacquiao in the past, and it’s almost predicable that he’ll be facing Rios and Bradley again at some point.

I don’t know if this fight made as much money as the fighters and their promoters think it did. The cable companies around the United States reportedly had major problems even before the fight started with people unable to order the fight, and the cable channels going down and staying down. I wouldn’t be surprised if a huge number of fans were unable to purchase or watch the fight. The ones that did purchase the fight might be asking for their money back if their cable was down during the fight.



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