LAS VEGAS -- Sitting in his corner, his face bloodied, breathing as if he'd just run a lengthy road race carrying a heavy pack, Juan Manuel Marquez looked like he was dying a slow death. Maybe it's because he just did.
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| Floyd Mayweather lets the world know he's back and uses an overmatched Marquez to prove his point. (AP) |
• Mayweather tops Marquez via unanimous decision
The fact Mayweather could do this to a highly skilled opponent like Marquez despite missing 21 months in the ring says a great deal about the skills of Mayweather.
"Floyd Mayweather is back," said Floyd Mayweather, displaying a splendid use of the first person, "and I'm ready to make some more noise in the sport of boxing."
The three judges scored the fight 118-109, 120-107 and 119-108. CBSSports.com scored the fight 118-109.
It was a splendid display by Mayweather yet this is boxing. Nothing is simple and clean. In what should've been a simple celebration of Mayweather's sheer Godzilla-like dominance and the ease with which he vectors around any challenger, the aftermath was instead a joke.
When HBO interviewed Mayweather after he embarrassed Marquez, Shane Mosley, who wants to fight Mayweather, bogarted the interview Kanye West style and challenged Mayweather to a future fight.
Mayweather was so genuinely outraged by Mosley's stupidity he looked like he was going to fight again right there in front of HBO's cameras outside of the ring. Cooler heads prevailed, but barely. Mayweather ended the interview by telling the questioner that he talked too much.
"This is not Mosley's night," he said.
The moment was utter chaos fueled by testosterone and delusions of grandeur by Mosley. It was also another ridiculous moment for a sport that just can't seem to get out of its own way.
The obvious next step is for Mayweather, now 40-0, to fight another shrimp, Manny Pacquiao. The problem is in press conferences afterward promoter Oscar De La Hoya was pushing Mayweather-Mosley. The latter would clearly be worse for the sport but that's the mentality of boxing. It seems to constantly suffer from some sort of psychological disorder.
In the ring, Mayweather is the opposite. His combination of quickness and toughness makes him practically unbeatable to any fighter in his weight class.
Consider this punch statistic: Mayweather landed 59 percent of his punches to Marquez's 12. Marquez just couldn't make contact.
"Marquez is tough as nails," Mayweather said. "He's a great little man. He was really hard to fight, and he kept taking some unbelievable shots."
Shot after shot after shot. Apparently, drinking your own urine isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
"It was a very hard fight," said Marquez through a translator. "He surprised me with the knockdown. He hurt me in that round but not in any other. I don't want to make an excuses but the weight was a problem. He's too fast."
"When I hit him, he laughed, but I knew he felt my punches," Marquez added. "We tried to work the speed, but the difference was the weight."
One of the ironies is that Mayweather said he was rusty but if there was rust it wasn't visible.
He's back. Mayweather is back and there shouldn't be any doubts about who is the best boxer in the world.
As for the sport itself? Well there remains plenty of them.
