Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, hits Manny Pacquiao, from the Philippines, during their welterweight title fight on Saturday, May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas. (AP)
LAS VEGAS — The sellout crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena may not agree with it but the punch stats show a clear victory for Floyd Mayweather Jr. over Manny Pacquiao Saturday night.
Mayweather outlanded Pacquiao 148 to 81 and even threw more punches 435 to 429.
The numbers also showed Mayweather, now the unified welterweight champion having won Pacquiao’s WBO belt to go along with his WBA and WBC crowns, hitting the Filipino boxing star more power punches with 81 as compared to 63.
The pound-for-pound king was also efficient as he connected on 48% of his 168 power punches.
Pacquiao also thought he had drawn Mayweather’s first loss in 48 professional fights.
“I thought I caught him many times. I was never hurt. I was very surprised at the scores. I hit him more times than he hit me. I thought I won,” Pacquiao said in disbelief.
“I thought we pulled it out. We pressed the action. We may have been flatfooted too many times but I thought we won the fight,” Pacquiao’s Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach said.
The 38-year-old Mayweather kept Pacquiao at a distance with his effective jabbing. Mayweather, in fact, landed 67 of them out of his 267 attempts. Pacquiao, in contrast, connected on just 18 jabs out of 193.
Final fight stats
Pacquiao was the aggressive fighter as expected and was at times appeared a bit frustrated as he chased the slippery Mayweather around the ring through 12 rounds.
“I knew he was going to push it and win some rounds. He had some moments in the fight, but I kept him on the outside, I was a smart fighter,” Mayweather said, who added that he plans to hang up his gloves after his last fight in September.
The boos rained down on Mayweather throughout the historic bout. Mayweather, though, soaked it all in and eventually had the final say as he walked out undefeated and $180 million richer.