Throughout the long history of boxing, there have been a few so-called “Fights of The Century.” Some lived up to the immense hype, the pressure to deliver – after all, calling any bout “The Fight of The Century” going in is really demanding something special, something epic.
The true “Fight of the Century” is, and perhaps always will be, the awesome fight, the historic fight, that rival unbeaten heavyweight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier gave us back in March of 1971. Now, that fight delivered!
Sadly, the biggest fight of all-time, at least the biggest as far as pay-per-view numbers generated – to the tune of 4.6 million – failed to deliver. Quite spectacularly so. It was a full decade ago today when rival pound-for-pound superstars Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao finally got it on. The world had waited a few years for the fight, and really it should have taken place in 2010, 2011, this when both men were at their dazzling best.
But at the time of the monster fight being announced, nobody was complaining too loudly that the fight had come too late. Fans, industry people, fellow fighters, we were all just excited that the fight was actually happening.
Handed a second tag-line, that of “Battle for Greatness,” the world welterweight championship took place in Las Vegas, this “Money’s” second home. Mayweather was by now 38 years of age, and he was spotless at 47-0(26). “Pac-Man” was two years younger and his record was 57-5-2(38).
Going in, fans were unaware of two things: Pacquiao had suffered a shoulder injury in training for the fight, the injury had healed but then reocurred in the fourth round of the fight. Mayweather had been administered IV fluids that were cleared by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, but, crucially, not by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
If these two factors were not in play, who knows how different a fight we might have been treated to? As it was, we saw a defensive masterclass from Mayweather, with a limited Pacquiao unable to score with more than flashes of success. Mayweather was brilliant, if boring. Pacquiao tried his best, but he was a compromised fighter. This was no great fight, no “Fight of the Century.”
Still, the rivalry had been settled, and Mayweather was the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of his era. At least on paper; Mayweather winning the mega fight by commanding scores of 118-110, 116-112, 116-112. It was later reported that almost half of the country’s households in the Philippines watched the fight.
But Pacquiao’s millions of fans were left bitterly disappointed by the fight and its outcome. As was the case with almost anyone else around the world who tuned in.
There was, for some time over the following years, talk of a rematch, but it never happened. Perhaps for the best. Those ten years sure have gone by fast but, for so many fans, the agony caused by the almost complete lack of action, in this, the biggest fight for many years, remains very fresh in the mind.
