Superb Mayweather defeats Alvarez

Floyd Mayweather further strengthened his claim to greatness with a one-sided defeat of Saul Alvarez in Las Vegas. In doing so the American, 36, secured the WBC and WBA light-middleweight titles and stretched his unbeaten run as a professional to 45 fights. The judges scored the fight 114-114, 116-112, 117-111, although the announcement of CJ Ross's drawn card was met with stunned silence. Mayweather was never threatened, making his Mexican foe look ordinary at times. Five-weight world champion Mayweather pockets upwards of $45m (£26.1m) for his efforts, a world record purse, while the fight is set to be the most lucrative pay-per-view show in history. And with tickets at the MGM Grand exchanging hands for a reported $30,000, many expected that the 23-year-old champion would at least push Mayweather close. However, such was Mayweather's defensive mastery that it never caught fire as a contest, with Alvarez spending much of the fight either hitting arms or swinging at fresh air. The die was cast in the first round, which Mayweather won courtesy of little more than a couple of snappy jabs, and the story was much the same in the second. When Alvarez tried to apply some educated pressure in the fourth Mayweather made the most of the openings, getting through with some typically incisive combinations. Alvarez turned to rough-house tactics in the sixth but, as Britain's Ricky Hatton learned when he was beaten by Mayweather in 2007, the American is equally adept on the inside. Mayweather got through with a vicious uppercut in the seventh, by which time Alvarez looked for all the world like a beaten man. Alvarez might have nicked rounds eight, nine and 10 as Mayweather took a breather but Mayweather was back on his toes down the stretch, easily getting the better of the last two rounds. Despite another Mayweather masterclass, Ross, who courted controversy by awarding Timothy Bradley a victory over Manny Pacquiao last year, somehow thought Alvarez had done enough for a draw. But sanity prevailed, meaning the Mayweather gravy train rumbles on, with a fight against fellow American Danny Garcia likely to be next. Garcia, who knocked out Britain's Amir Khan in 2012, was awarded a split decision victory over Argentina's Lucas Matthysse on the MGM Grand undercard.