Floyd Mayweather-Tenshin Nasukawa a 'laughable event'
All along Floyd Mayweather insisted his three-round welterweight boxing exhibition fight with Japanese kickboxing star Tenshin Nasukawa was supposed to be "all about entertainment."
Mayweather preached that line throughout the unusual build up to the bout that was first on with no rules announced, then off when Mayweather suddenly backed out and then back on again with the rules being outlined that it would be a regulation boxing match -- but would not count on anyone's record and would not use any judges or have scores rendered if the fight went the distance.
Well, if you call watching Mayweather, now 41 and not even close to being in the kind of supreme condition he has always been in for his real boxing matches, annihilate a 20-year-old non-boxer in a little over two minutes entertainment, congratulations, you were probably entertained.
The rest of us? Meh.
In reality the whole thing was downright embarrassing and at times looked almost staged. That said, nobody should blame Mayweather for getting paid for essentially doing nothing. He has had much more grueling workouts in the gym, yet he wrote on social media that he would be paid $9 million for the scheduled nine-minute fight that wound lasting only a fraction of that length.
Mayweather showed up about two hours later than scheduled to the Saitama Prefecture Super Arena in Saitama, Japan -- about a half hour drive outside of Tokyo -- on Monday to headline the Rizin Fighting Federation's New Year's Eve mixed combat sports card.
There had been 13 previous official bouts before Mayweather left everyone waiting through an interminable intermission before making his arrival and then laying waste to Nasukawa, a Rizin kickboxing champion who was left in tears in the ring after the fight as Mayweather raised his hand and paraded him around the ring.
"It was all about entrainment. We had fun," Mayweather said in the ring, apparently believing that Tenshin, a natural junior featherweight, had fun getting knocked down three times with an assortment of clean punches from a much bigger man. "Tokyo, Japan, you guys have been amazing. Thank you."
Mayweather, who was barely touched, knocked Nasukawa down with a left hook, a right uppercut and another right hand to the top of the head. After the third knockdown, Nasukawa's corner threw in the towel and referee Kenny Bayless, who has worked several of Mayweather's biggest real fights, waved it off.
The fight was televised in Japan and available around the world as a pay-per-view on a combat sports app -- except in North America, where Mayweather apparently did not want the fight seen.
For anyone who actually paid for the event specifically to see Mayweather assault Nasukawa, you got what you deserved. But, again, nobody should blame Mayweather for taking the money.
He played this to the hilt. He came to the ring with a baseball hat emblazoned with "U$A" and wore trunks that had his own image pictured on one leg and with dollar bills on the other.
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