Floyd "Money" Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KOs) defeated Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KOs) in convincing fashion on Saturday night in Las Vegas, winning via a majority decision.
Despite one judge scoring the championship bout as a draw, most everyone in attendance and watching around the world knew that Money was in control from start to finish and without a doubt the winner. Although the 23-year-old Alvarez threw slightly more punches than his legendary opponent, he connected on nearly half as many.
With the lopsided victory, Mayweather advances to 45-0 for his professional career and maintains his status as the top pound-for-pound boxer on the planet.
It remains to be seen what's next for the 36-year-old champion, but we can certainly look back on his most recent success.
Below we'll highlight the most interesting aspects of Money's easy win over Alvarez.
*Statistics courtesy of CompuBoxOnline.com.
Mayweather Lands 42 Percent of His Jabs
Everyone knew coming in that the jab would be a huge key for both fighters, especially for Mayweather, who has built an all-time great legacy with the devastating shot.
On Saturday night, Money threw jabs early and often, finishing 330 jabs thrown for the match. Unfortunately for Alvarez, Mayweather connected on 139 of those punches to finish at a clip of 42 percent.
Meanwhile, Alvarez was able to land just 44 of his 294 jab attempts for the fight, connecting at a dismal rate of 15 percent.
Alvarez had to be effective and hurt Mayweather with the jab in order to have any chance of pulling off the upset. Not only was he unable to land those shots consistently, but he also landed fewer than four per round on average.
Money Connects on 53 Percent of Power Punches
When you take a look at the numbers, it's certainly not difficult to see why Mayweather was able to inflict so much damage on Alvarez over the course of 12 rounds on Saturday.
In addition to landing 42 percent of his jabs, Money was able to connect on more than half of his power punches, landing 93 of 175 for the fight for a mark of 53 percent. It could have been much worse for Alvarez, though, as Money landed 60 percent of his power shots vs. Guerrero last May, according to CompuBox via MLive.com's Josh Slagter.
While Alvarez was able to land 73 power punches on Mayweather, keep in mind that he threw 57 more power shots than his opponent, connecting at a rate of just 31 percent.
With such a huge gap in between the two fighters' connection rates, it's stunning to think one of the judges scored a 114-114 draw on Saturday.
Defense Reigns Supreme
As is always the case, Mayweather's unrivaled movement and defensive ability gave him an undeniable edge against Alvarez, who, like so many of Money's previous opponents, was left swinging at air.
Although Alvarez was slightly more successful at landing shots on Mayweather than Robert Guerrero and Miguel Cotto were, in the end he wound up hitting Money just 22 percent of the time. That simply won't get it done against the pound-for-pound king.
However, that low rate isn't all that shocking when you consider that Mayweather's last 10 opponents have connected on just 17 percent of their total punches on average, according to Slagter.
It all boils down to a simple conclusion: You can't beat what you can't hit.
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