Furious boxing fans have accused Floyd Mayweather of throwing his fight with Logan Paul after footage of the legendary boxer appearing to hold up his opponent – rather than letting him slump to the canvas – emerged.
Mayweather dominated the contest at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami but was surprisingly unable to stop Paul, with the rookie surviving the full eight rounds of their exhibition bout.
But fight fans have now hit out at Mayweather, claiming the undefeated 44-year-old deliberately stopped Paul from collapsing in order to extend the fight – despite landing a flurry of punches which looked to have ended the YouTuber’s challenge.
The clip during the fight shows an exhausted Paul stepping back towards the ropes, before the social media sensation looked to thrust out a heavy right hand.
Mayweather was able to evade the hook with ease and responded with a blow of his own, crashing into Paul’s head. The 26-year-old then slumped forward towards ‘Money’, who promptly unleashed an uppercut.
The odds were firmly stacked against Paul coming into the clash, and the evening looked to be over for him after he visibly sagged forward on to Mayweather.
Floyd Mayweather actually knocked out Logan Paul, but held him up during the fight to carry it through 8 rounds 👀 pic.twitter.com/Y4JSimELIr
— FootBasket.com (@Foot_Basket) June 7, 2021
However, the clip shows Mayweather appearing to use both his arms to hold up his rival, stopping him from falling and preventing the fight from being stopped early.
And after the video surfaced on social media in the hours following the bout, some fans were left questioning whether Paul had indeed been knocked out by the former world champion boxer.
Paul himself joked that Mayweather may have let him ‘survive’.
After the bout, he said: ‘This is still one of the greatest moments of my life… damn, I’m happy. You never know with this guy, I’m going to go home thinking, “Yo, did Floyd let me survive?”.’ Despite Mayweather being widely mocked for his failure to knock out Paul, a host of fans suggested he allowed Paul to go the full eight rounds because it would be better for Showtime’s TV coverage – and their huge pay packets. (DailyMail)