'I've Seen Better Acting in Pornos': Mayweather-Nasukawa Bout Dismissed as Fake

Floyd Mayweather's trouncing of Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa by TKO in just over two minutes in a New Year's Eve bout in Japan has led to speculation that the fight was nothing but a staged farce.
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Former Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter and sports commentator Brendan Schaub has characterized 41-year-old undefeated US boxing champion Floyd 'Money' Mayweather's trouncing of 20-year-old Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa as "fake."

"I've seen better acting in pornos," Schaub, the podcaster and host of Showtime's Below The Belt, said, according to Boxing Scene.

"Of course this is fake. Who cares? But of course this is fake. Come on, you believed that? He made nine million, we should be celebrating that," Schaub noted, adding that he hoped Nasukawa made some money from the exhibition fight for his efforts. "All we know is that Floyd got paid," the commentator noted.

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"Floyd's just doing his thing, he's the aggressor, so it's not as hard to fake it. But Tenshin needs acting skills. They should have got someone to work with him on falling down, getting hit in the face, and all that," Schaub added, suggesting he wasn't convinced by the kickboxer's performance in the ring.

Mayweather routed Nasukawa via technical knockout (TKO) after dropping him three times in the first 140 seconds of the first round.

The match, held on New Year's Eve in Saitama, Japan, used boxing rules, and pocketed Mayweather a cool $9 million payday.

Schaub, 35, left the UFC in 2014 following a career which included 10 victories and five defeats, turning to sports journalism.

The commentator wasn't the only one to question the fight's legitimacy, with MMA fans taking to social media to post analysis videos, or criticizing the fight as fundamentally unfair to begin with, given the weight class difference between Mayweather and Nasukawa, the difference in fight style between boxing and kickboxing, etc.

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