Although it was more than five years in the making, the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao "Fight of the Century" fizzled into just another boxing match without fireworks this past May.
Still, the massive hype generated by the fight, accompanied by his retirement announcement, was good enough to make Mayweather the most-buzzworthy athlete atop Facebook's Most-Discussed Global Athletes list of 2015.
Behind him in the second spot? Pacquiao of course. And rounding out the top three is Ronda Rousey, presumably in part to the way social media networks exploded when she was shocked and knocked out by Holly Holm in a stunning UFC upset last month.
Just like Facebook's Top 10 Most-Discussed Global Topics list of 2015, the athletes' ranking was measured by how frequently he or she was mentioned in posts by the social media giant's millions of users, made between January 1 and December 1, 2015.
The rest of the Top 10 consists of: 4) Lionel Messi, 5) Cristiano Ronaldo, 6) Tom Brady, 7) Stephen Curry, 8) LeBron James, 9) Serena Williams and 10) Carlos Tevez.
The placement of the athletes on this list shouldn't come as a surprise at all. Mayweather and Pacquiao were ranked the first two largely based on their fight, which finally happened, while Rousey's placement definitely skyrocketed when her stunning defeat followed her almost-invincible dominance as the biggest attraction in mixed martial arts (MMA).
Messi, Ronaldo, and Tevez reinforced that soccer is the world's most-popular sport by their respective rankings, while the fact that Curry's Golden State Warriors defeated King James's Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals had a lot to do with their back-to-back showing on the list.
Sort of like Rousey, Williams' dominance was met with a shocker, when she suffered one of the biggest upsets in women's tennis history during the U.S. Open. semifinals in September.
Surprised at all by the rankings or that a particular athlete didn't make it?
