Mayweather vs. Pacquiao Start Time: PPV Coverage Info and Fight Preview
Sports rarely deal in absolutes, which is what makes Saturday’s highly anticipated clash between Floyd Mayweather (47-0, 26 KO) and Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KO) such a thing of beauty.
We can argue over who is better between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. We can argue over who is better between LeBron James and Kevin Durant. We can even argue over who is better between Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.
While head-to-head showdowns provide some clarity in those debates, there is also far too much context to come to a complete answer. Each star has teammates who must make plays in order to secure the victory and bragging rights. Factors such as weather in a football game, pitching in baseball and defensive shifts in basketball can distort a game and individual production one way or the other.
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None of that comes into play Saturday.
After years of speculation, Mayweather and Pacquiao will go mano a mano in the ring. There will be no teammates to bail them out and no extraneous factors impacting the match. It will simply be the pure ability and will of each boxer with the title of best in a generation on the line.
This fight has been the center of discussion in the boxing world for years, so it should come as no surprise that it is a marquee pay-per-view event. Coverage of the showdown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas starts Saturday, May 2 at 9 p.m. ET, per both HBO and Showtime’s official websites.
Bob Velin of USA Today noted that HBO (where Pacquiao is under contract) and Showtime (where Mayweather is under contract) came together for the first time since Mike Tyson fought Lennox Lewis in 2002.
Interestingly, that fight between Tyson and Lewis played a role in this decision, as HBO Sports President Ken Hershman said, per Velin: "A great road map for this fight. It showed that this can be done successfully. There's a lot of mechanics that go into this when two networks are working together, and those mechanics carry forward in terms of how things operate behind the scenes."
The astronomical amount of money this fight will generate probably played a role in the decision from HBO and Showtime as well.
Darren Rovell of ESPN.com passed along the suggested retail price for the fight as $89.95 with potential HD surcharges of up to $10. The all-time record for pay-per-view price for a single fight is $64.95 for the Mayweather bouts against Canelo Alvarez and Marcos Maidana.
Rovell noted that the Mayweather and Pacquiao clash is expected to break the record for pay-per-view revenue of $152 million from that fight against Alvarez and the most buys (2.5 million) from Mayweather’s battle with Oscar De La Hoya.
There’s a reason for the extravagance. Kieran Mulvaney of Inside HBO Boxing acknowledged there is far more than just a title on the line with these two boxers:
"At stake, nominally, will be each man’s welterweight title, but the two belts up for grabs are the least of the prizes on offer. The winner will not just be the true welterweight champion. He will be even more than the undisputed number one pugilist, pound-for-pound, in the world. He will lay an uncontestable claim to be the best boxer of his generation. Both will emerge as very rich men, earning more money in one night than even they have ever pocketed at any stage in their glittering careers. But as much pleasure as such riches will bring, the winner will surely derive even greater satisfaction from putting the debate to rest and emerging victorious against the man whose name has been uttered in connection with his own with infuriating, suffocating frequency.
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Excited yet?
Mayweather and Pacquiao may be past their primes, but that doesn’t really matter anymore. They are still the two best boxers of this generation, and their names have been linked to each other throughout the past five years.
Plus, Pac-Man has plenty of momentum on his side after bouncing back from his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez with a dominant victory against Chris Algieri. Marquez also lost to Tim Bradley, who lost to Pacquiao, which cemented the southpaw as the next logical fight for Mayweather.
As for Money, he will carry an air of invincibility as long as there is a zero in the loss column of his record. It is an event anytime he fights, and this will be the biggest of his entire career.
Ultimately, the showdown will come down to whether Pac-Man can land his powerful punches and unleash enough offensive flurries to overcome Mayweather’s legendary defense and tactical skills. A knockout for either boxer would cause Twitter to implode, but it’s not likely to happen given their recent track records.
Pacquiao hasn't had a knockout win since 2009, and Mayweather has one knockout win in the past eight years.
That theoretically plays into Mayweather’s hand as the boxer who waits his opponents out and makes the necessary adjustments to come away with the victory. Still, letting someone as proven as Pacquiao hang around is a dangerous game, especially since he can attack Money from various angles as a southpaw who also has a powerful right-hand punch in his arsenal.
Pacquiao will go the distance with Mayweather, but the unparalleled defense and ability to avoid his opponent’s best shots from the undefeated champion will prove to be too much.
Prediction: Mayweather by decision.
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