Atlas: Maidana will have a good chance of beating Mayweather in rematch

By Boxing News - 05/05/2014 - Comments

maidana52By Dan Ambrose: ESPN commentator Teddy Atlas sees Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) as gaining strength and confidence from his good performance against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) last Saturday night, and using that confidence to take the fight to Mayweather in an even more aggressive manner in their possible rematch in September of this year. Atlas blames Mayweather’s poor performance in the fight on him putting too much emphasis on his defense at the expense of his offense.

Atlas thinks Mayweather could have shut Maidana down completely and knock him out if he had taken the fight to him instead of sitting back against the ropes to look for counter shot opportunities. Mayweather thought he could halt Maidana’s forward motion with single punches while he was coming forward, but Maidana walked through these punches all night long to get in close to throw his nonstop bombs. Atlas thinks Mayweather could have kept Maidana from getting anything off if he had just thrown combinations.

“He [Mayweather] will be closer to 40-years-old, and in his [Maidana], he will have an even better chance of beating Floyd,” Atlas said to ESPN. “He’s not going to be better as he gets older; he’s just going to get older. So the confidence that Maidana is going to have, ‘Yes, I can stand up to him, and yes, I can stand up to his defensive wisdom.”

Mayweather says he’s going to box Maidana in the rematch, and not give him any chances of landing his big shots like he did last Saturday night. Some boxing fans think Mayweather had no other choice but to fight Maidana the way he did due to the pressure that he was putting on him in the fight. It would have taken constant movement from Mayweather to keep out of the way of Maidana, and it might have been difficult to do this for 12 rounds.

“His [Mayweather] greatest weakness is his defense. He gets intoxicated with it,” Atlas said. “He gets drugged by it, he goes to it too much, and he allows fighters to come into him and he allowed Maidana to get into him. If he [Mayweather] had got off first, those punches would have never come at him, but he goes into his defensive posture and allows opponents to chuck at him and guess what? When you allow fighters to chuck at you, they’ll still that part of a round and they have a chance to land. So, his defense, his greatest strength, if he loses, it will be because of that.”

Atlas’ idea of Mayweather taking the fight to Maidana would work if Mayweather were physically capable of throwing 50-100 punches per round, but it’s debatable if Mayweather can still do that at his age. He was never known for having a high work rate even when he was younger, but to ask Mayweather to do that at now might be impossible. Mayweather would be going straight into the teeth of Maidana’s offense if he were to be the one going on the attack. Adrien Broner tried that tactic against Maidana, and he got knocked down twice and almost stopped.



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