LAS VEGAS – Last Tuesday an ebullient Floyd Mayweather declared upon his arrival at the MGM Grand, “This is not a fight. This is what we call an event.’’ Well, he warned you.

For 12 one-sided rounds, Mayweather went about making clear this event with Saul “Canelo’’ Alvarez was anything but a fight. It was the highest paid sparring session in boxing history, a dispute as lopsided as if he had been in with one of his young children which, in a way he was.

It was quickly apparent Alvarez was merely the newest member of The Money Team, a $12 million employee not terribly inclined to challenge the boss after the first few rounds of being slammed square in the face by Mayweather’s jab and in the ears with a string of right hands about which he could do nothing but absorb them.

After a 36-minute beating however an apparently out of focus judge named C.J. Ross somehow scored as one-sided a fight as you could imagine a draw, 114-114. She is the same C.J. Ross who saw Tim Bradley defeating Manny Pacquiao when few others even with myopia would have agreed. If Ross were a real judge she’d be disbarred for decisions like that.

Fortunately Dave Moretti scored the bout 116-112 and Craig Metcalfe had it 117-111 for the welterweight and junior middleweight champion. The Herald had Mayweather winning 118-110.

“I’m not in control of the judges," Mayweather (45-0, 26 KO) said succinctly.

Certainly he was in control of Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO), however, from the very first minute of the very first round until the final few seconds when he embarrassed him one last time. In the interim he battered him as well as embarrassed him, making the 23-year-old Mexican myth look like what he was — a ball lost in tall weeds.

“There was no solution for him,’’ Alvarez admitted. “I didn’t know how to get to him. He’s very elusive. I was trying to catch him. The frustration was getting in there."

Or not getting in there to be more accurate.

Mayweather opened the fight snapping out his jab and carrying the fight to Alvarez, who spent most of the opening round cautiously measuring Mayweather without hitting him, his right hand cocked but refusing to pull the trigger.

The second round was a carbon copy of the first, with the Mayweather jab landing and Alvarez seemingly unable to pull the trigger on anything as he moved warily on the edges of Mayweather’s legendary defensive shell without penetrating it.

Alvarez seemed to be moving in cement, unsure of his distance or when it was safe to throw. The few times he did he often ate a straight left hand for his trouble and when he backed into the ropes midway through the third round Mayweather laced him with two hard rights, the first snapping his head and the second dissuading him from countering. Nine minutes into the fight and it was already turning into a long night for the young, mystified Mexican.

Mayweather again schooled Alvarez in Round 4, blistering him with the jab and a four-punch, body-to-head combination that had Alvarez clinching. When he did, he then hit Mayweather low, the first sign that he was beginning to unravel from the frustration of finding no way to hit his opponent and even fewer ways to prevent him from pelting him with a thick forest of leather.

If there were answers to the puzzle he was facing, Alvarez had no idea what they were as he began to eat more and more of the right hand counters and lead rights Mayweather had so often used to damage and debilitate far more experienced opponents than the 23-year-old.

Midway through the sixth round of what was turning into a $41.5 million sparring session for Mayweather, Alvarez again tried to foul him after eating a combination and a slew of jabs, his mind now starting to fall apart like a cheaply made toy. Not only had Alvarez not won a round, he’d not won an exchange and as he grew more desperate he only began to open himself up for more punishment, which Mayweather was happy to provide.

Now not only was Alvarez’s head red but so was his face from a combination of Mayweather’s flashing fists. It was utter embarrassment from being helpless to do anything but eat a hard right uppercut and then two overhand rights late in Round 7 when he backed into a neutral corner, seeking an escape where none existed.

When Maweather decided to take the eighth round off to rest his knuckles, Alvarez tried to come on and he landed more punches in those three minutes than he had in the previous seven rounds. Yet even then he found himself repeatedly with Mayweather standing directly in front of him and still missing him. Then, with 1:14 to go, Mayweather decided to remind him of the situation he was in and blasted him with a left-right combination that snapped his head back and then two straight jabs square in the middle of his face. Alvarez may have gotten the round but he also got the point.

Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO) had a habit of fading late in fights and he seemed to tire noticeably by round 9, his arms sagging more to his side and Mayweather hurting him more and more. Punches that had once buffeted him like a stiff breeze were now hitting him with the force of a mounting storm from which he could find no shelter.

Alvarez now began shrinking into a shell like a turtle that has pulled in its legs and head because he is being poked and prodded by a force he cannot escape.

Occasionally he would peek his head out, throwing a desperate flurry of punches in the blind hope one might hit something besides the desert air but when he did the end of each flurry would come with him taking a hard jab or two flush in the face, and his head would slip back inside that shell.

Mayweather, as is his wont, seemed content to pot shot him round after round with the kind of punches that alter the frame of your face the next day in ways that would make your mother weep. By the end of round 11, Alvarez had to hope his cellphone didn’t have a facial recognition system, because if it did, he wouldn’t be able to use it until Halloween.

With about 15 seconds left in round 11, Mayweather finally hit him with the ultimate indignity and he did so without touching his challenger. Alvarez was pursuing him along the ropes and threw a wild right hand Mayweather easily avoided. As he did, Alvarez’s fist slammed into the rope, and as they wobbled wildl,y Mayweather stopped and stared at them in astonishment, a grin on his face as if to say, “Boy, you need to install GPS."

The final round was no different than all its predecessors, three minutes of embarrassment for a kid who never should have been in the ring with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in the first place. That was a notion those familiar with the sport understood but one, fortunately for all involved, the paying public did not.

Earlier in the evening it was a rough start for The Money Team when IBF junior middleweight champion Ishe Smith lost his first title defense by split decision to Carlos Molina in a snoozefest. Molina (22-5-2, 6 KO) tapped out a lackluster victory over Smith (25-6, 11 KO), who seemed utterly disinterested in putting up much of a defense against a challenger who appeared less than excited about winning that title. But in the end somebody had to leave with it.

That was followed by a bravura performance from unified super lightweight champion Danny Garcia, who outboxed, outfoxed and, in the end, outhit power punching Lucas Matthysses. The challenger had come in as the favorite because of his all-consuming punching power, having stopped 32 of his 34 victims, but after two rounds of a powerful attack, Garcia slowly began to take over with a string of body punches that began to slow Matthysses (34-3, 32 KO) down.

Then, at the fight’s midpoint, Matthysse’s right eye began to close like drawn blinds, quickly becoming a slit. After that, Garcia (27-0, 16 KO) clearly took over, fighting smartly and with increasing but still controlled aggression.

Growing desperate late in the fight, Matthysses attacked the champion as the 11th round opened, ripping him with a right hand that sent his mouthpiece flying through the air. But when it was returned to the champion’s mouth he was clear-headed and soon answering back, finally dropping Matthysses late in the round with a flurry that began with a right to the body and then a second right that sent the challenger into the ropes.

With his arm momentarily caught between the strands, Matthysses was an open target and the champion hit it solidly twice more, a snapping right hand finally sending him to the floor. Matthysses arose with a clear mind but half blind and no longer the fearsome knockout puncher he had been when the night began.

The two finally went toe-to-toe in the fight’s final seconds, Garcia refusing to back up and clinch even though the unanimous decision he was soon to be awarded was in hand as long as he could stay off the floor. He did and judges Robert Boyle and Juegen Langos gave him the fight, 114-112, while Glenn Trowbridge had it 115-111. The Herald card had Garcia winning as well, 115-113.


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