This is a thing that happened today.
As it turns out, a twenty pound lighter kickboxer making his debut under pro boxing rules is no match for one of the greatest boxers of all time. Who knew?
Long time king of the sport Floyd Mayweather Jr (50-0, 27 KOs) kind of, sort of paused his retirement for two minutes today in Japan to rake in a high seven figures payday to land a few shots on an undersized, 20 year old kickboxer. Tenshin Nasukawa just wasn’t able to take blows from a bigger man who has specialized his whole life at being one of the greatest to ever throw hands. The undefeated kickboxer was put down three times in the first two minutes before the fight was called off.
Of course, this fight was an exhibition so it doesn’t count towards anything and may as well not have happened at all. Had it run its three round distance, there wouldn’t even have been judges. It turns out that they wouldn’t even have had to judge a round had they existed anyway.
The one point I want to really touch on here is some of the irresponsible reporting going on across the internet. Deadspin in particular ran a recap article strongly implying that the fight was fixed based on Tenshin’s dramatic flops on seemingly glancing shots. That is just ignorance in in the most literal sense. The first shot that dropped the kickboxer was a glancing blow, yes, but it was delivered from an all time great boxer four weight classes bigger to that spot behind the ear that we’ve seen throw off a fighter’s equilibrium a thousand times before. From there he just never recovered.
Also, why would promoter Rizin bring an aged American over and fix a fight in which he thrashes their biggest young star without much effort whatsoever? Why would they sabotage their own brand like that? It would make no sense. Plus, if this was fixed then the Oscar goes to Tenshin Nasukawa. He was distraught when his corner stopped the fight. He nearly collapsed in tears. If he was taking dives and that was fake, he is in the wrong line of work. Let’s get this kid to Hollywood.
Post-fight Mayweather threw some cold water on the idea of a Pacquiao rematch later in the year by saying that he remains retired, but we will see. The rumors were that Floyd would take a tune up in Japan before rematching Manny. Of the two fights, the Japanese practice session seemed the less likely of the two and that one happened. May-Pac II wouldn’t even approach the numbers of the disappointing first fight, but then again it wouldn’t need to come close to still be extremely lucrative. Money talks, especially to Floyd Mayweather Jr. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the rematch later this year.
