Manny Pacquiao 'fought Floyd Mayweather with injured shoulder'

Mayweather won the 'fight of the century' after starting with intent, withstanding some decent offense from Pacquiao in the middle and finishing their 12-round contest with masterful coordination and accuracy.

[READ LIAM HAPPE'S FULL REPORT HERE]

Pacquiao claimed after the contest that he felt he should have won because he was the more aggressive of the two, but his vastly-inferior punching stats did not paint a flattering picture.

Pacquiao, a 2-1 underdog going into the welterweight bout, suffered the injury during a sparring session, according to his trainer Freddie Roach.

Roach said the injury occurred after Pacquiao collided with another fighter during sparring and their arms got entangled.

Pacquiao's promote, Bob Arum, added: "You guys saw the fight yourself. When you review the film, you'll see how infrequently he threw the right."

An MRI exam subsequently revealed a tear in the Filipino southpaw's right shoulder, though Roach said the boxer had since made good progress and he felt that he could still compete in the ring.

"In the third round, I really felt pain in the shoulder," he said. "We didn't throw a lot of combinations because it hurt.

"The thing is, what we wanted to do we could not do because of my (right) shoulder.

"I fought a good fight. I did my best. My shoulder, I didn't complain in the ring. It's part of the game."

Yahoo Sports' Stateside writer Kevin Iole, who was ringside at the MGM Grand, posted an interesting report within an hour or so of the bout's conclusion.

"It turns out he had a right shoulder injury suffered three to four weeks before the fight," explained Iole.

"He had taken anti-inflammatory shots that were approved by the United States Anti-Doping Agency during camp.

"He requested to take a shot after arriving in his locker room shortly after 6 p.m. PT, but was denied by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

"A source said he might need surgery that could keep him out for up to nine months. But because he checked on a medical form that he had no injuries, the commission denied him the shot."

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports in the US chose to focus more generally on the fight and Mayweather's mastery rather than Pacquiao's problems.

"For the 16,507 who paid big bucks to be here in person and the even bigger audience that tuned in on pay-per-view, the ones that pay attention to boxing only so often, this may have been a boring fight," he said.

"Fair enough. But this wasn’t so much a boring fight as a Floyd Mayweather fight, and you can label it dull if you wish, rail that he just doesn’t excite the masses with the offense everyone craves, but this is exactly what was likely to happen. There is a wizard-like quality to what the man has accomplished in the ring."

It's an unfortunate turn of events for Pacquiao if this is the case. Of course, there was no way he could have backed out of such a big-money fight and ended up having to work hurt. However, it's not possible to attribute it all to his shoulder. Mentally, he was defeated by Mayweather in the final few rounds having made the contest more competitive in the middle of it. The worst scenario to come from all of this is if Pacquiao does have to sit out nine months - that would make it likely that his next fight would be over a year from now. It could even make him contemplate retirement, now he has failed to end Mayweather's unbeaten ways. It'd be a shame to lose such a popular boxer this way.