LAS VEGAS – Floyd Mayweather Jr. did the expected. One judge didn’t.
It was brilliant. It was bizarre. It was boxing all over again.
Mayweather didn’t have to explain himself for fulfilling the promises he made in dancing around and all over Canelo Alvarez Saturday night at the MGM Grand. It was called The One. For once, the promoters got it right. Two great fighters didn’t show up. Only Mayweather did in a one sided-display of brilliance that further embellished his undisputed claim on being the best of his generation.
Canelo never had a chance. Not one.
Still, a judge gave him one. C.J. Ross scored it 114-114. Maybe, nobody should be surprised. Ross was also one of two judges who scored it for Timothy Bradley in the controversial split-decision over Manny Pacquiao on Dec. 8.
When Ross’ score was announced, there were gasps from a capacity crowd that was dominated by Canelo fans from Mexico. They also had seen what everybody other than Ross had witnessed.
Two other scorecards ensured that Mayweather had a victory by majority decision. On judge Craig Metcalfe’s card, it was 117-111. Dave Moretti scored it 116-112. On the 15 Rounds card, Mayweather scored a shutout. Outgunned and out-classed, Canelo didn’t win a round on this card.
“I can’t control the judges,’’ Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs) said after moving in and out while landing punches with sniper-like speed and accuracy.
It was the right answer from Mayweather, who collected a record-setting guarantee of $41.5 million. Still, it didn’t explain Ross’ score. There had been plenty of talk before opening bell about a rematch. A buzz for the junior-middleweight fight was in the air for days. Money was being made. A pay-per-view record for the Showtime telecast was a real possibility. At the MGM Grand’s sports book, one of the popular bets was a draw. Odds on a draw were 10-1 on Thursday and Friday. Early Saturday, they had dropped to 8-1.
Mayweather’s dominance of the fight might have eliminated any appetite for a rematch, despite what Ross’ score might say.
Canelo (42-1-1, 30 KOs) entered the ring 13 pounds heavier than the 152 pounds he recorded at Friday’s weigh-in. He was bigger and looked it, especially in the upper body. The 165-pound Canelo out-weighed Mayweather by about 15 pounds. But that was no advantage for the young Mexican. It only meant he was a bigger target for Mayweather. A stationary one, too.
“I couldn’t connect,’’ said Canelo, who could wind up with a career-high $12 million once he gets his undisclosed share of the television money. “He was just too elusive, too smart and too experienced.’’
Canelo did not dispute the loss. He said he knew he had been beaten.
It’s strange that C.J Ross didn’t.
Danny Garcia said it was his job to take away Lucas Matthysse’s power.
Mission accomplished.
Garcia (27-0, 16 KOs) employed patience and smarts to nullify that proven power for a unanimous decision over Matthysse (34-3, 32 KOs).
Matthysse was the early aggressor. The junior-welterweight dictated the pace as he stalked Garcia, who retained the 140-pound title.
In moving forward, however, Matthysse stepped into a trap set brilliantly by Garcia. First, Matthysse walked into body shots. Then, there were repeated right hands. Not long after a head butt in the fifth round, an ugly mouse appeared below Matthysse’s right eye. It wasn’t clear whether the butt caused the bruise. From the seventh through the 11th rounds, swelling began to close the eye as he continued forward and straight into Garcia’s right.
In the 11th, Matthysse knocked out Garcia’s mouth piece with a right hand. But Garcia still took the round, knocking down Matthysse with a sucession of puches along the ropes.In the 12th, Garcia was penalized a point for a low blow,
By then, however, it wasn’t enough to take the victory away from the Philadelphia fighter.
There was only one way to score the Ishe Smith-Carlos Molina fight: Dull and duller. Molina (22-5-2, 6 KOs) won it, scoring a split decision and taking the International Boxing Federation’s version of the junior-middleweight title from Smith (25-6, 11 KOs). But there weren’t many cheers or boos about the scoring. There were only yawns for zero action in a fight that went to Molina, who prevailed with some aggression in the early rounds.
Mexican welterweight Pablo Cesar Cano (27-3-1, 20 KOs) bloodied Ashley Theopane’s nose, rocked him with a left in the third, nearly knocked him down with a right in the fifth and backed him up for eight of the 10 rounds, yet had to wait and wonder whether he won the first televised fight. Cano did, scoring a split decision. But he didn’t do enough to convince judge Richard Ocasio, whose score was the first announced on a curious card that favored Theopane (33-6-1, 10 KOs), a Mayweather-promoted fighter.
Luis Arias (7-0, 3 KOs), a super-middleweight from Milwaukee, wore Packer green-and-gold into the ring. Then, he made James Winchester (16-9, 6 KOs) of Reidsville, N.C., look like the Jacksonville Jaguars. Arias scored a shutout, winning every round in a six-round unanimous decision in the final bout before the pay-per-view telecast began. Arias was the fourth Mayweather fighter to win.
Ronald Gavril (7-0, 5 KOs) , a super-middleweight from Romania, made it 3-0 through the card’s first three fights for Mayweather Promotions with a unanimous decision over Shujaa El Amin (12-5, 6 KOs) of Flint, Mich. Gavril suffered a bloody nose early in the bout, but he was the busier fighter throughout the eight-round bout.
Chris Pearson, a Mayweather-promoted middleweight from Dayton, followed Bellows’ first-round TKO with an even quicker stoppage. In the opening seconds, Pearson (12-0, 9 KOs) threw a jab that landed like a baseball bat, leaving Joshua Williams (9-6, 5 KOs) of Westerly, R.I. with a badly bloodied nose. About a minute later, it was over. Referee Russell Mora ended it at 1:14 of the opening round.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s promotional company got things started with a victory.
“Easy Money,’’ was the chant from one of the few fans seated Saturday in a chilly, empty Grand Garden Arena two-and-a-half hours before Showtime’s pay-per-view telecast was scheduled to begin for the card featuring Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez at the MGM Grand.
Lanell Bellows (6-0-1, 5 KOs), a Mayweather-promoted super-middleweight, made it easy with a first-round TKO of Jordan Moore (3-1) of Logan, W.V.
Bellows put Moore onto his knees with a paralyzing body shot, a right-handed hook, 2:30 after opening bell.
