Highlights and results: Mayweather and Silva do their exhibitions, Persoon and Jack win fights

Floyd Mayweather and Anderson Silva more or less gave the live crowd their money’s worth with their exhibitions in Abu Dhabi.

Floyd Mayweather’s exhibition with old friend Don Moore went down today in Abu Dhabi, and it was definitely an exhibition for eight rounds of two minutes apiece, with no winner declared and it being obvious that Mayweather was giving somewhere between 16 and 57 percent at all times.

While the commentary team on the pay-per-view live stream delighted in orgasmically describing the, erm, “action,” the real story of the event is that Don Moore got to have a little moment, a story to take back home forever, that he headlined a pay-per-view show in Abu Dhabi with one of the greatest of all time.

“Floyd, you did your thing. Respect,” Moore said. “He capitalized, he countered. I tried to mix it up with him, but he was the better man tonight. But I love you, bro.”

“Fun is what it’s all about,” Mayweather said. “I’m here to entertain, have fun. Don Moore is a great fighter, he’s undefeated. We’re both still undefeated. I love Don Moore. He will always be a champion in my heart.”

Asked what he might do next, Floyd said, “It’s a secret, I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag right now. But we have an opponent.” He said he’ll return to the UAE for that one, which is now expected to come on Saturday, Oct. 1, by the way. Mayweather didn’t mention that, but that’s what Global Titans Fight Series — the original organizers of last week’s postponed event, which became this week’s with different organizers — have set up already.

Mayweather vs Moore highlights

Anderson Silva exhibition Bruno Machado

They went eight, two-minute rounds at “heavy sparring” tempo. Machado did get dropped at the end of the fifth round when he was clipped, and Silva never really pushed for anything more than that.

This was clearly an emotional deal for Machado, who teared up a bit after it was over, thanking Silva for giving him the chance to share a ring with him and calling him an inspiration.

“When I fight, I try to copy him, I try to do the things he does. I love him,” Machado said.

Asked what he might do next, Silva said, “Maybe I will fight in a jiu-jitsu tournament,” referencing one coming up in Abu Dhabi.

Undercard results and highlights

• Delfine Persoon UD-10 Elhem Mekhaled: This was a really, really good fight, just all-action, the pace never let up, and Persoon (47-3, 19 KO) now has the WBC “silver” belt at 130. In theory this puts you in line for a title shot, but, well, ask Dillian Whyte how that goes. But then Persoon really might get an order from it because I doubt Alycia Baumgardner and Matchroom will go out of their way to politic to avoid it. Or they might! Who knows. I had this 98-92, but it was more competitive than that, I just thought Delfine was consistently winning the rounds. But Mekhaled (15-1, 3 KO) made this a fight, and she did her best to fight it on Persoon’s terms, because Persoon doesn’t really give you options about that. You either do or don’t. Scores were 96-94, 97-93, and 97-93.

• Badou Jack KO-1 Hany Atiyo: Jack (26-3-3, 16 KO) punched Atiyo (17-6, 12 KO) once with a left hook and Atiyo fell over and the fight ended. I’m not suggesting this was staged, I am suggesting Atiyo is every bit the No. 343 cruiserweight in the world as BoxRec suggest, and that he had no business in a ring with Jack. The fight lasted 46 seconds. Jack, 38, continues fighting the worst competition he can find at cruiserweight.