Mayweather vs. Paul (main event)

Mayweather started tentatively and defensively, reluctant to throw often and avoiding most of Paul's shots. Toward the end of the first round, Paul unleashed a wild flurry, but all of his punches were blocked by Mayweather's guard. The second round was similar to the first, with Mayweather content with the slow pace of the fight. He finally turned up the offense in the third, opening up with some clean left hooks that rocked Paul's head back, as well as mixing in his trademark pull counter with the right hand.^[8] From the fourth round onward, Paul was visibly fatigued and took every opportunity to utilize his weight advantage by tying the smaller Mayweather up in the clinch after every exchange. Despite Paul's constant attempts at neutering Mayweather's offense, the latter continued to dictate the pace of the fight and land the cleaner, more effective punches. Toward the end of the eighth and final round, Paul showboated when it became clear that he had done enough to avoid being stopped as most had predicted would be the case,^[9] and that he would survive to hear the final bell.

The fight went the full eight-round distance, and no winner was announced. Mayweather's superior boxing was reflected by the CompuBox punch stats, with Mayweather having landed 43 punches of 107 thrown (40.2%), compared to Paul's 28 landed of 217 thrown (12.9%).^[10]

In his post-fight interview, Mayweather praised his opponent, saying: "He's better than I thought he was ... he's a tough, rough competitor."^[8] Paul appeared to harbor some doubt about how seriously Mayweather had taken the fight, saying: "I'm going to go home thinking, 'Did Floyd let me survive?'"^[8] Mayweather later claimed that he did hold back saying "If it was a real fight, it would've been a blowout in the first round."^[11]

Undercard

On the undercard, former two-division champion Badou Jack beat undefeated Dervin Colina by fourth-round technical knockout, Luís Arias secured an upset victory against former unified light-middlweight champion Jarrett Hurd via split decision, and Chad Johnson and Brian Maxwell went the full distance in a four-round exhibition bout.^[8]