The bout between Floyd Mayweather and Tenshin Nasukawa was supposed to be an exhibition but it turned out to be a brutally one sided fight. Wearing 10oz gloves the undefeated boxer did serious damage to an opponent 20-30lbs lighter than him.
Tenshin’s corner threw in the towel towards the end of the first round but only after their man had been knocked down three times. Mayweather looked slightly overweight and clearly wasn’t in peak condition but he still had far too much for a fighter who had never even boxed before.
The fight was advertised as being an exhibition but once the bell sounded both men seemed to be taking it seriously. Mayweather might have laughed out loud at Tenshin to begin with but when the Japanese fighter displayed some aggression he was punished for it.
Early knockdown
Barely a minute had elapsed when Mayweather put Tenshin down for the first time. A left hook seemed to clip the kickboxing prodigy behind the ear but he looked seriously disorientated and barely beat the count.
To his credit Tenshin continued to attack but all Mayweather needed to do was keep his gloves up and absorb the onslaught. The second knockdown was even harder than the first with a right uppercut snapping the Japanese fighter’s head back and sending him down.
This time Tenshin was straight up but Mayweather decided the time had come to close the show. A two punch combination sent Tenshin stumbling back and, while a three knockdown rule obviously wasn’t in place, his corner sensibly decided to throw in the towel.
Easy pay day
What was the point? For Mayweather the motivation was obvious, he claimed to be receiving a $9 million USD purse and this lucrative night’s work will go down as the easiest pay day in combat sports history.
Rizin saw arguably its biggest star knocked out in front of a huge domestic TV audience as well as the 30,000 or so fans in attendance at the Saitama Super Arena. Earlier in the evening Kyoji Horiguchi scored arguably the biggest win of his career but this event will always be remembered for the horrific mismatch which headlined it.
