(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) has been training hard for the past month for his big fight against WBC champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) next month on May 3rd, and Maidana feels he’s in top shape and really to pull off an upset. Maidana expects to give a much better performance against Mayweather than the recent efforts from Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, both of which seemed to have no heart for the task.
The bar is pretty low for Maidana, and he’s in the position where he’s going to look good just by going out and putting forth a good effort.
“I will give Mayweather a much better fight than any of the other contenders will,” Maidana said. “They know I throw heavy punches that can seriously hurt my opponent. This going to be a great fight that fans will not want to miss. I am ready for May 3 and I’m ready for Floyd Mayweather.”
Maidana can punch as hard as Canelo, but he’s more willing to get involved in the fray and not stand back and try and copy Mayweather with the shoulder roll defense the way that Canelo did. In that respect, Maidana is a smarter fighter than Canelo, because he’s not going to waste a lot of time on May 3rd trying to be something that he’s not. Maidana realizes that he’s not in Mayweather’s class in the boxing skills department, and that’s why he’s going to focus all of his energy on trying to knock him out with every punch he throws. We didn’t see that from Canelo.
The red-haired fighter wasted most of the fight by trying to beat Mayweather at his own game by boxing him instead of using his 20 pound weight advantage to crush him the way that he’d crushed other welterweights that he’d been matched up against while fighting in the junior middleweight division. Maidana won’t have Canelo’s weight advantage over Mayweather, but he’ll definitely be a lot stronger and that gives him a puncher’s chance at winning this fight.
It might be enough if he can corner Mayweather and blast him out. Maidan cornered Adrien Broner numerous times last December, and gave him a bad beating in taking his WBA 147lb title. Now Maidana is going to try the same tactic against Mayweather on May 3rd. If it works, Maidana will have one of the biggest upset wins in the history of boxing, and he’ll guarantee himself a rematch that will make him an incredibly wealthy fighter.
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