By Jason Keidel
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No sport is less tethered to stats than boxing. Even beyond team sports, sprinters are measured by nanoseconds, as are swimmers. Long-distance runners and high jumpers have their own unique metrics.
But the sweet science is an inexact science, more eye candy than hard data. There’s no metric to measure a boxer’s success. The only memorable number carried into the ring on May 2 is Floyd Mayweather’s 47 wins, next to a glowing goose egg.
And it’s Manny Pacquiao’s job to break, fry and scramble it. But not even the Filipino dynamo can flaunt perfection over his career, or even over his last five fights, which show two losses (though one of them, against Timothy Bradley, was widely regarded as a heist).
According to a 2012 ESPN.com article, which analyzed a nine-fight span during his prime, Mayweather was landing about 46 percent of his punches, while being hit by about 16 percent of punches hurled his way. The 30 percent chasm is the widest in modern boxing history. PunchStat was spawned in 1985, so any data predating CompuBox isn’t entirely empirical.
The stats shouldn’t shock anyone. Mayweather has mastered the nuance of defense, the basic coda of hitting and not being hit. Sounds and seems simple enough, but boxing is more than landing blows and keeping your hands up. When you throw punches you expose yourself, which is why speed is so essential.
There are, of course, myriad mitigating circumstances that explain his dominance and the possibility that he can’t repeat it.
The knock on Mayweather is that his 47 wins have hardly come on the backs of behemoths. He fought two Hall of Fame fighters in Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya, but both were deep in the back nine of their bejeweled careers. And Robert Guerrero, Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana aren’t a conga line of luminaries.
But it’s not Mayweather’s fault that he’s not fighting the Four Kings — Hagler, Hearns, Leonard and Duran. He didn’t even get to fight Pernell Whitaker and Felix Trinidad, or De La Hoya in his halcyon years. But everyone thought Canelo Alvarez would be the first fighter to overwhelm Mayweather with his abundant size and strength. Instead, Mayweather schooled the young Mexican icon.
So, to many fans, this is the first time Mayweather is fighting someone who is truly and purely perilous. Pacquiao has all the bona fides of a fighter — speed, quickness, power and intelligence. Not to mention his immutable desire. Not many fighters find the hardihood to come back after getting flattened in a fight.
There’s also an implicit opponent — Father Time. Or Mother Nature, for gender equality. Mayweather is not the same fighter he was five years ago. Miguel Cotto and Maidana — who are exponentially slower — were able to land way more shots against him than we’re accustomed. Indeed, in their first fight, Maidana landed more punches (221) than anyone in Mayweather’s career.
It’s hard to parse the particulars when you’ve never lost. As long as he can handle that delicate goose egg on the right side of the ledger, then Mayweather will be the king of the sport of kings.
So, when the clock strikes midnight we’ll see who morphs into a prince or a pumpkin. Until then, we are drooling over the two most regal scientists in the sweet science.
Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel.
