Mayweather v Alvarez

I’d been looking forward to Saturday night for weeks. Floyd Mayweather was fighting Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for the light middleweight title in Las Vegas. It was only available on Box Nation and would cost me a tenner. To be honest I would have paid much more if I’d had to. In America the pay per view price was $79.95. Yep £50! Yet it was already destined to be the biggest pay per view audience ever. That’s how big this fight was.

For those of you who have no idea of what I’m talking about, let me enlighten you.

Floyd Mayweather Junior is a 36 year old, brash, flash, arrogant, black, American, multi- millionaire boxer. He also happens to be “pound for pound” the best boxer on the planet. He is unbeaten in 45 professional fights. He has won world championships in five different weight divisions and has won just about every accolade the sport has to offer. He is also the world’s highest earning sportsman. For his participation in Saturdays fight he would have earned another 41 million dollars!

His opponent on Saturday was a young extremely talented 23 year old Mexican called Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. His nickname is Canelo, because in Spanish it means Cinnamon, and this boy has bright red hair! He’s only been professional since 2005 but has already had 42 fights and won then all. Thirty of them by knockout. This kid doesn’t just win fights he normally destroys his opposition. He’s fought everyone they’ve put in front of him and battered them. This kid could be the next big thing. He could become the next Floyd Mayweather!

The hype before the fight was massive. There were TV programmes about both of the fighters. The press followed them everywhere. We were treated to “Behind the scenes” training sessions and an “Access all area” TV series that aired every week to show us how each of the boxers were preparing for the fight.

Mayweather trained in his private gym and stayed in his own Mansion in Las Vegas surrounded by an entourage of private chefs, masseurs, personal assistants, body guards, drivers, trainers, management team, press advisors, and god knows who else. A week before the fight he threw an “End of training” party for all of his team ( The Money Team) and got one of his female assistants to draw out half a million dollars in cash so that he could buy them all presents. Yep, as I said before, the guy is brash and flash! 

Alvarez on the other hand trained in a log cabin up in the mountains with just a few essential personnel.  There were rumours that he was hitting so hard in training that most of his sparring partners had to leave. Their ribs had been broken.

In a nutshell it’s a real life “Rocky” story…

It was a sell out at the MGM in Las Vegas and tickets were selling for 20,000 dollars on the black market. Numerous celebs were there including Jack Nicholson and Denzel Washington.

Then came fight time. Floyd made a grand entrance into the ring accompanied by rapper Lil Wayne and amazingly Justin Beiber. What that did for his street cred god only knows.

Canelo just walked into the ring with not much fanfare. National anthems were sung, the announcements were made and the ref read them the riot act. The fight began.

The first round was cagey. Both fighters just seeing what the other one had and giving each other a bit of respect. Mayweather threw a few more punches than Canelo so it was his round.

The next eleven rounds were amazing. As much as the young Canelo tried to punch Mayweather he just couldn’t seem to get the range. Mayweather was just too classy for him. It was an exhibition in boxing.

Mayweather bobbed, weaved, shuffled, ducked and swayed and gave Canelo a lesson in how to hit yet not be hit. Yes sure he took a few punches but he just brushed them off and got back to work. He counter punched, threw accurate damaging combinations and poor Canelo had no real answer.

Mayweather won convincingly on points. Although a woman judge ( obviously blind) gave it as a draw. Most agreed that he won at least 9 of the twelve rounds and two other rounds could have gone either way.

This 36 year old had come up against the best of the rest, gave him 13 years and taught him a boxing lesson. If we thought Mayweather was good before, we now know he’s right up there with the best of all time.

If he’d been around in another era with the likes of Hagler, Hearns, Duran and Leonard would he have beaten any of them? Who know? Who cares? He is quite simply the best there is today and that’s all that matters.