Floyd Mayweather Outpointed Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas Thirteen Years Ago
Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat Canelo Alvarez by majority decision on this date in 2013, and the night still reads as one of the clearest displays of ring IQ in modern boxing. Thirteen years later the result has not changed, and neither has the gap the judges and the punch stats both recorded.
The fight was billed as The One and contested on Sept. 14, 2013, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Mayweather, then 36 and 44-0, took the WBA Super, WBC, and The Ring light middleweight titles from the 23-year-old Mexican champion.
Alvarez entered 42-0-1 and was expected to walk the older man down. What he found instead was a southpaw-range master working from orthodox who never stayed in the pocket long enough to be hit clean.
Judge C.J. Ross scored it 114-114. Dave Moretti had it 116-112 and Craig Metcalfe 117-111, giving Mayweather the majority decision and a 45-0 record.
Almost every unofficial card was wider. The Associated Press had it 119-109. ESPN had it 120-108. CompuBox showed Mayweather landing 232 of 505 punches at 46 percent while Alvarez connected on 117 of 526 at 22 percent.
Ross retired from judging after the cards were released. The draw round totals did not match what 16,746 people in the building or the 86 media scorecards had watched for 36 minutes.
Mayweather fought at 151 pounds to Alvarez’s 152 on a 152-pound catchweight. He spent the night on the back foot, jabbing, pulling, and answering with the right hand whenever Alvarez stepped in with the left hook that had finished so many earlier opponents.
Alvarez could not cut the ring. When he did get close, Mayweather tied him up or spun off the ropes and reset at range.
“It’s simple. I couldn’t catch him,” Alvarez said afterward through a translator. “Didn’t know how to get him, it’s simple as that. He’s very intelligent, he’s very elusive, and that’s what he demonstrated tonight.”
Mayweather called it one of his best nights and treated the loss as a step, not an ending, for the younger champion.
“Seventeen years and I’m still going strong,” Mayweather said. “Canelo is a young strong champion. I take my hat off to him and to the country of Mexico.”
The business matched the billing. The gate passed $20 million. Showtime PPV did about 2.2 million buys and roughly $150 million in revenue, numbers that defined the Mayweather era as much as the 50-0 finish that followed.
For Alvarez the night became a starting line rather than a ceiling. He left Las Vegas with his first defeat and spent the next decade collecting titles at 154, 160, 168, and 175, becoming the face of the sport Mayweather later left.
Mayweather never gave him a rematch. He added wins over Marcos Maidana twice, Manny Pacquiao, Andre Berto, Conor McGregor, and a 2021 exhibition against Logan Paul, then stayed retired at 50-0.
The photograph still circulating today is the fight in two frames. Mayweather’s blue gloves are already home while Alvarez’s green ones are still traveling. That is the entire story of the 12 rounds.
Anniversaries like this one do not reopen the scorecards. They only underline how completely Mayweather solved a future Hall of Famer who was supposed to be too young, too strong, and too hungry.
Boxing has had bigger gates since and louder pay-per-view numbers. It has not had many nights where a 36-year-old made a 23-year-old champion miss for half an hour and left the building with every belt that was on the line.
The record from Sept. 14, 2013, remains majority decision, Mayweather. Thirteen years on, the film still looks the same.