Manny Pacquiao Claims He Fought With Injured Right Shoulder, Commission Denied Treatment
By Rob Perez
Lord, here we go…
After getting dominated by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last night, Manny Pacquiao showed up to his post-fight press conference and told the media he suffered a right-shoulder injury during training, and was denied treatment.
"“It’s part of the game,” Pacquiao said. “I don’t want to make alibis or complain or anything … it’s hard to fight one-handed.” Pacquiao, trainer Freddie Roach and promoter Bob Arum were vague on the details of the injury but confirmed they considered postponing the bout a few weeks ago. “I thought he fought a courageous fight under all the circumstances, and I’m very proud of what he accomplished tonight,” Arum said."
Pacquiao’s Trainer Freddie Roach went on to say the injury occurred when Pacquiao threw a right hand during training — “about a month ago…”
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, went on to describe the injury as the sameLos Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant suffered in January, which ultimately kept him out of action the rest of the year and required rotator cuff surgery.
"“We felt the [rehabilitative] work that was done on the shoulder during training would give him the opportunity to use the right hand,” promoter Bob Arum said. “We were disappointed when in the third round the injury kicked up again, but this is always the case in sport. … He heals the injury, thinks he’s conquered it and it flares up again.”"
Per the same ESPN report: Pacquiao requested to take an anti-inflammatory shot before the fight, including Bupivacaine/Celestone/Lidocaine, but his request was denied by the Nevada Athletic Commission:
"“We were not aware of his injury until tonight at 6:30,” said [Francisco] Aguilar, [Chairman of the NAC], who made the ruling. “The medications he was taking were disclosed on his medical questionnaire, but not the actual injury. … This isn’t our first fight. This is our business. There is a process, and when you try to screw with the process, it’s not going to work for you. “After speaking to [NSAC medical consultant] Dr. [Timothy] Trainor and understanding what the request was, I made a decision not to allow it, given the timing of the request.”"
In the end: the fight was all Mayweather, and I’m not sure a healthy shoulder would have even mattered for Manny. Mayweather did Mayweather things, parlaying his insanely-impenetrable defense with his counter-punching prowess to prevent the aggressive Pacquiao from ever gaining any sort of momentum. It felt like Pac was chasing around the red dot of a laser pointer, just in this case: the little red dot smacks you in the face if you get too close. Bum shoulder or not, Mayweather held Pacquiao to single-match career lows in punch-landing percentage (19%) and total punches landed (81) — and honestly, it seemed worse than that …
If interested, you can watch the full post-fight press conference here: