By Daniel Clement: Last night Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) defeated WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision to capture his WBA 147 lb. title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Was Mayweather’s victory a controversial one? It was not. Was it a dirty fight that shown a lack of sportsmanship from Maidana? Yes it was in my view.
First let’s look into both fighters’ performances.
Maidana used a lot of moves that looked dirty in the fight. Usually such things would be frowned upon, but since Mayweather is involved, it seem that anything goes, which is not how it should be. From the very first rounds, we saw a lot of rabbit punches from Maidana, which appeared intentional. Rabbit punches is a term commonly used to describe a punch to the back of the head, which is let me remind you, illegal in boxing. It is the punch that as the most chance to cause brain damage and can even cause death if landed on the wrong spot. Maidana used a lot of shoving, even bringing Mayweather into the ground at one point. Lots of critics pointed out that Amir Khan ”pushed” Luis Collazo in the co-feature, but they fail to talk about what Maidana did. Maidana clashed heads with Maidana and he hit Mayweather with an occasional knee, whether intentional or not. Maidana nailed Floyd with a big headbutt in the early rounds which opened a cut that seemed to worry Floyd. The knee almost got Floyd in the face as well.
From Mayweather we saw a lot of clinching when Maidana came forward, but that is a boxing strategy, and clinching is allowed at a different pace depending on the referee. There was some slight pushing and rabbit punches, but those weren’t intentional as they didn’t happen often at all. Overall, Mayweather fought clean, which is surprising considering he usually fight dirty with dirty, as we saw in his KO win over Ortiz.
Now let’s talk about the fans, Mayweather was on his home turf, but he got booed even though he was the one fighting cleanly and showing good sportsmanship, even complimenting Maidana at the end of the fight, looking over all the dirty fighting he did. The fans still booed Mayweather and applauded Maidana, there seem to be a problem with impartiality here. If it was Manny Pacquiao in there with El Chino, some people would’ve been offended by this behavior.
Let’s now look at the stats for the fight.
Floyd Mayweather
- Total Punches: 230/426 (54%)
- Jabs: 52/152 (34%)
- Power punches: 178/274 (65%)
Marco Maidana
- Total punches: 221/858 (26%)
- Jabs: 36/318 (11%)
- Power punches: 185/540 (34%)
As you can see, we have a total punches landed for Mayweather of 54% against the 26% of Maidanas, the double. Yes, Maidanas may have been the busier fighter, but a lot of those punches were illegal (back of the head) and or unorganized random shots that weren’t hitting anything. Mayweather was per compubox, way more efficient than Maidana in landing his shots cleanly. There’s an old saying: quality does not equal quantity.
Overall, it was a good fight, but Maidana was outclassed.
What is your opinion on this? I’ll obviously try to respond to any question and or constructive criticism toward my point of view or my article as long as they stay relevant.
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