By Dan Ambrose: WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) thinks that one of the reasons why Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) chose to fight him instead of someone else like Amir Khan is because he believes that Mayweather might want to avenge the loss of his good friend Adrien Broner, who Maidana gave a bad beating to in winning a 12 round unanimous decision last December. Broner not only is a good friend of Mayweather, but he’s also someone who has a very similar fighting style, and Maidana might have struck a nerve with Mayweather by defeating his fighting style with his win over Broner.
“I do not know why he chose to fight me. Surely, I will be a better deal for him to fight than Khan. Or he wants to avenge the beating I gave Broner, his friend,” Maidana said to Canchallena. “I am aware I have to win by knockout.”
Mayweather needs to fight under control against Maidana, because he can’t be going out there with the thought of getting back at Maidana for him beating his protégé Broner. Mayweather will need to be on his guard the entire time against Maidana, because he can’t go out there and fight him the way he did Robert Guerrero and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by staying in the pocket for extended amounts of time to try and prove something.
If Mayweather fights like that on May 3rd, Maidana will look to take his head off with one of his big shots. The difference between Maidana and Canelo is that Maidana will keep fighting when he gets in close. Canelo was like a kitten when he got in close with Mayweather, and he let himself get tied up in clinches. Maidana won’t oblige Mayweather by letting him hold without nailing him with constant shots to the head and body until Mayweather lets go of him. That’s the one big difference between Maidana and Canelo. Mayweather will not be able to take it easy against Maidana even for a second without him coming in at him to hit him as hard as he possibly can.
Broner fought a stupid fight against Maidana, because he should have been using his feet to move around the ring instead of standing directly in front of him and mixing it up. That was Broner’s ego getting in the way of him doing well, because he needed to stay out of Maidana’s way at all costs. In between rounds, Broner seemed to tune out the advice he was getting from his trainer, because he didn’t change his game at all in any of the rounds after the 2nd. He continued to stand in front of Maidana and make it easy for him to land his shots.
Mayweather won’t be able to avenge Broner’s loss to Maidana even if he beats him. Only Broner can do that, and I don’t think he’s got the skills, power or size to accomplish that task. Broner has also gone quiet about wanting the Maidana rematch, so it’s possible that we’ll never see a rematch between them. Maidana’s win over Broner will likely never been avenged.
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