Floyd Mayweather defeated Manny Pacquaio tonight via unanimous decision in their “mega” fight, often described over the past months as The Fight of the Century.

We are more likely to look back on it as a fight puffed into an enormous scope because of the pent-up demand of fight fans to see those two in the ring together.

The fight itself?

Not even the fight of the year.

Floyd Mayweather may be the least satisfying great boxing champion.

His strength is in his sublime ability not to get hit. I am tempted to say he is better at not getting hit than just about anyone who has ever put on  gloves.

But it is hard to get excited about something that doesn’t happen, and when a Mayweather fight is as highly anticipated as this one was, that leaves the audience dissatisfied.

Attacking is something Mayweather does in the margins. Flicking in a jab, especially when he has an advantage in reach (as he did against Pacquiao, by nearly four full inches), counter-punching after his opponent lunges in … then dancing away and reestablishing his peek-a-boo defense, with gloves in front of his face. More jabs; keeping his chin a half-inch beyond his opponent’s reach.

Opponents have been complaining for a decade that Mayweather doesn’t carry a fight. I covered his bout with Oscar De La Hoya in Las Vegas nearly eight years ago and it was an interesting fight, from the perspective of the contrasting styles, which is what I wrote.

Ten fights and eight years later, however, we are still watching boxing being dominated by a guy who doesn’t get hit, who waits for the other guy to come forward, and that’s getting old.

Oscar made a fair point, in 2007, after Floyd won a decision: “If I didn’t press the fight there’d be no fight.”

Back then, it was an interesting and novel approach to the sport which usually is dominated by the most dangerous men coming forward.

Luckily, despite Mayweather’s success, we don’t seem to see many fighters attempting to emulate him style.

Of course, we don’t see any good fighters coming up. Of any style: Heavy hitters, stick-and-move guys, defensive geniuses.

What is fairly amazing about boxing is that we still pay attention to big fights. Or those of us of a certain age do. And the rate of return on “hyped fights” turning into “great fights” … pretty much never happens.

It did not tonight.

I gave Mayweather the fight 116-113, with Pacquaio winning four rounds to Mayweather’s seven. I actually had Manny ahead by a point after eight rounds, but then Mayweather took over as Pacquaio seemed to tire and won the final four rounds.

For the sake of the spectacle, it would have been satisfying had Mayweather taken advantage of his edge in the end, and gone in for the kill. Pacquaio counted out … it would be a lot easier then to agree with the “best pound for pound” if not The Best Ever, which seems silly. It would have been easier to consider this a great fight.

But instead of moving in on Pacquaio, Mayweather floated around the edges, and pumped his fists in the air near the end, instead of aiming them at Manny, and that was that.

A rematch? I think not. But if they can make the same sort of money by reprising this … maybe it happens. For the wrong reasons, that is.

And maybe Mayweather stays around for two more fights, the second to put him past Rocky Marciano‘s record 49-0 mark.

Then he retires with hardly a mark on him — and not many on his opponents, either.