As Roger Mayweather often says, most people don't know anything about boxing. Because of that issue, I still hear interviews with Mike Tyson, and others where reporters will ask the most basic and ignorant of questions, hundreds of years after the sport's inception. Even the amateur programs have become dumbed down, and produce underachieving prospects that bomb out at the olympics if they get there. Also, this affects how people receive Mayweather performances in the ring, and the prestige of his opponents. I will attempt to simplify and break down this fight to explain why I had it scored a draw, and what you as the fans are missing, in his approach to boxing matches.
This is an excerpt of a post I made on First Take's Youtube feed:
This is just proof that stylistically, it's impossible to win rounds against Floyd, unless there is a serious revamp in the quality of judges and all of those involved in the boxing industry. This fight as well as the Canelo fight, had his opponents doing fairly well, yet, like Skipp said, not getting rounds unless they drew blood. For the record, I don't completely agree with Skipp. On my scorecards, in all honesty, I had the fight even the first time I scored it round for round. But the statement about Floyd's jab by Steven is inaccurate. Floyd's jab was much better than I expected, which was awesome, but much of the time, he threw it at Manny's guard and followed with a right hand that was blocked and threw Manny across the ring. He sold that so well, that you scored those punches, when half of them were blocked. In all honesty, he is a master, but the issue with simple minded people watching a master work, is that they don't know how it looks for him to lose or give ground. There were a few rounds in the Canelo fight that were close chess matches that Canelo edged. But it's hard for people to dissect Mayweather's work, so he often so-called dominates based off of his overall performance, which isn't totally wrong, but it's inaccurate. Unfortunately, what this ends up becoming, is opponents like Canelo being perceived as being blown out. I don't mind calling the Canelo fight a schooling, because while it was chess, Mayweather was for the most part, a step ahead, in that regard. But in this fight, the class Manny showed in the ring, that would have gotten him props in any other matchup, was overshadowed, not only by Floyd's talent, but sadly, by his ability to manipulate how you read fights.
What that translates to, in short, is that when he faces a formidable opponent, he draws in incompetent fans and judges, with an overall approach that makes them give him most if not all tight rounds. Like Skipp alluded to, the head nodding, and the emphatic body movement play a part. Also, he will slap or chop at a guard with punches often with authority, because he knows if you do that right, it can simulate a strong landed punch. All this he does while keeping a range jab in front of him, which should never be scored. A range jab is a short quick jab thrown at the front of a raised guard to measure distance when moving. It has no offense at all. But, he sells his confidence so well, that judges find themselves scoring things for him completely against the rule book. You'll notice, that you will never hear fans like Stephen A. go at the analysis round for round. They always talk of the scope of the entire fight, because that's how his performances have trained you to look at them. And I really don't care to hear about Compubox anymore. I used to think it was an accurate computer system, but I'm starting to see how poorly it works. He spreads out his rushes well to make them appear longer. Also, his posture plays a key role. When he takes a punch, he makes sure to recoil into a transition or step. This has several benefits, and one of them is that it can make his 3 punches to your 3 punches appear to be 10 punches to 3. He isn't wrong for his style, it's just that since people can't understand it, they don't get the fact that besting him will never look clean. Manny could have won every round, and it still would have looked ugly on his part. That's just how Floyd's technique is designed.
To illustrate:There were times that Manny used the effective 2-1 combination, starting at the body. He would finish it with a hook often times. As he finished the combo, Mayweather would already be stepping to his left. As Manny would pursue and throw jabs, Floyd would be riding the 2-3 jabs, so that the combination would never be finished in one place. That's very intelligent, yes, and also very hard for most people to score. If you mix that in with sharp attack counters, it can make 3 punches trump a 7 punch combination. When they were along the ropes, he did the usual of covering up. Manny impressed me with how sharp he was getting through the guard. That's why Floyd used the double guard instead, abandoning the idea of slipping. He bites down and many of those punches that usually hit arm go through the guard and hit the temples and kidneys. Because you so often see slower fighters miss, you discount those punches without thinking or bothering to look much. Hopkins makes his fights ugly like that even in mismatches. Mayweather knows how to position himself before, and after getting hit. I know many of you wonder why Manny didn't pressure more. Some of us wonder why he didn't step to his right more and slip in the counter. Why didn't he pick up his work rate. Those are all valid questions, but you have to understand Mayweather to understand the answer. And you have to understand boxing.
Manny often did try to exchange jabs in the middle of the ring, even with a 5 inch reach deficit, and had very decent success. He actually has a sharper jab than Mayweather believe it or not, but it doesn't matter. Mayweathers stance and timing will make your jabs almost always look ineffective compared to his, based on when he starts and stops. He throws most of his jabs when you are transitioning or planted, rather than randomly like most boxers do. This adds to their power, and scores more emphatically. When he sees you raise your lead foot for a jab, he slides back his rear foot, to position to ride the jab and counter over top, or quickly switch position and make it look ineffective. To prevent Manny's strong hand from getting too much work in, he simply controlled distance like Paulie Malignaggi stated, and stepped back routinely, forcing Manny to reset. That's why Manny couldn't step to the right as much as he wanted. Because of Manny resetting, he had to use feints to get back in while Mayweather retreated. If he rushed in like many wanted him to , simple reach would have made him eat counters and shots unnecessarily. People keep saying that Roach had no gameplan. That's ignorant talk. They worked on in and out movement. If you notice, Manny didn't eat nearly as many right hands as he normally does in his top level fights, and this is against the best lead right hand thrower in the game. Early on, Floyd tried to line up the lean right hand often, and realized it wasn't working like usual, and resorted to pumping a range jab and holding. Look again, and you'll see Manny gave almost as good as he got in the jab battle. The bottom line, is that there is a price for everything. Manny minimized the cost of that price, not being wreckless, to get inside when safe, and to land pot shots of his own, which we haven't seen done to Floyd. Manny doesn't have the size and brutal power of Maidana. He doesn't have the height of Oscar De La Hoya. As far as an effective performance with his tools, that's about as good a performance as you can possibly get from him against Floyd's style.
Mosley picked Floyd to win. The fact that he and Evander saw the fight differently isn't because they are suddenly boxing dumb. Remember, Mosley faced both of them. His input was respected up until now. When I see the bulk of celebrities all saying something so contrary to those to HOF'ers, I don't get swayed because I know something must be up for that to be the case. I love Floyd, but I will call it as it is. I don't latch onto what I hear everyone else saying. When I scored the fight the second time, I gave it to Floyd 115-113.
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