Mayweather vs. Berto: Winner, Top Highlights, Stats and Quotes

Pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. bowed out of the sport of boxing Saturday night in the only way he knew how, soundly beating Andre Berto in a 12-round unanimous decision victory to improve to 49-0.

The 38-year-old appeared in control from the opening seconds, and that tune didn't change throughout 36 minutes inside the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After dancing around every Berto challenge and answering with convincing jabs, Mayweather put what appeared to be a finishing touch on his career.

Bleacher Report summed up the win and where it puts Mayweather for his career:

Nobody should have expected anything different, but yet another vintage Mayweather defensive performance shined through Saturday night.

The 32-year-old Berto looked aggressive and intent on forcing the issue, but that much proved to be impossible. He simply couldn't land anything on Mayweather, who glided around almost every attempt with ease.

Although Mayweather got hit two more times than he did four months ago against Manny Pacquiao, Berto struggled to hit more than 20 percent of his punches, as ESPN Stats and Info noted:

Berto couldn't for the life of him find Mayweather, but Money had no such troubles.

While never truly attacking his opponent, Mayweather waited for the right times to get his punches in and did just that. His efficiency with power punches reached an astonishing percentage at one point, as Mike Coppinger of USA Today noted:

Every fighter who has stepped into the ring with Mayweather has had a similar game plan—attack with intelligence, force Mayweather on his back foot and rough him up. That's much easier said than done, and Berto found that out Saturday.

He entered the fight hoping to establish a tone that never really got going, as he shared with Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated:

"

Andre Berto says his game plan was to double and triple jab and bring the pressure. Said Mayweather was slippery and really smart.

— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixSI) September 13, 2015"

But Berto's failed attempts at victory Saturday only proved to be a minor footnote to the real story. That, of course, involved Mayweather stepping away from the ring for good.

Or so he says. With his camp staying firm on his pledge to retire following Saturday, he reiterated that to ESPN's Dan Rafael after the fight:

"

"You got to know when to hang it up, and it's time for me to hang it up," Mayweather said. "I'm not going to be doing this when I'm 40 years old.

"There's nothing else for me to do in the sport of boxing. I made great investments, I'm financially stable, well off. I had a great career. My record speaks for itself."

"

There's no telling, honestly, whether the talk of Mayweather being done with the sport holds any real water. It's hard not to believe him with all he's accomplished, but it's also hard to believe he would leave millions on the table that would come from a rematch with Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto or Saul Alvarez.

At the same time, what, really, would that prove? There's simply nothing else that Mayweather can do over a final fight or two that would do anything other than get his record to that round number of 50, which frankly isn't enough alone to spur a comeback.

For now, we can bask in Saturday night being the last time the living legend laced up the gloves.