Maidana’s trainer wants him to rough up Mayweather on Saturday

By Boxing News - 05/01/2014 - Comments

maidana633By Allan Fox: Marcos Maidana’s trainer Robert Garcia believes that one of the keys to victory for Maidana in his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) this Saturday night is for him to rough up Mayweather, and make it difficult for him to relax in the ring. Garcia wants Maidana to keep Mayweather under pressure constantly by staying close to him, throwing lots of punches, and roughing him up so that he can’t get into his normal rhythm in the ring.

Garcia doesn’t think Maidana will make the same mistakes that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Oscar De La Hoya did by trying to box Mayweather, and showing him too much respect. Garcia believes that Maidana will go after Mayweather and will show him zero respect like he did against Adrien Broner in handing out punishment against Mayweather.

“You’ve got to make it rough, you’ve got to make it dirty,” Garcia said in explaining one of his theories in how to beat Mayweather. “I want Chino to be careful in the first couple of rounds, and if the opportunity comes, we’re going to take advantage of it. You can’t let Mayweather get comfortable. Chino has no respect for nobody in the ring. He doesn’t care. He goes in there and tries to knock him opponent’s out. This is the best training camp we’ve ever had. Maidana followed every instruction. I can say we’re ready to go.”

To be sure, Maidana will need to stay close to Mayweather and try to pin him to the ropes if he wants to have a chance to get the victory on Saturday. If Mayweather has space to move around the ring, he’s going to be able to pick Maidana off much in the same way he did against Canelo and Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather has talked about wanting to stand in front of Maidana in this fight, but few people believe that Mayweather will actually do that on Saturday night. He’s talked about that, but it’s very likely just talk to get fans interested in the fight than something that he’ll actually try and do. Mayweather took a lot of punishment in his fight against Miguel Cotto in 2012 when he chose to fight with him. It wasn’t until Cotto tired in the last four rounds where we saw Mayweather pull away.

In Mayweather’s last two fights against Robert Guerrero and Canelo, he used a mixture of movement and punching to get the win. The Canelo fight wasn’t that difficult for Mayweather because even when he did stand in front of Canelo, it wasn’t that bad because Canelo was trying to box with him instead of using his size and strength. Canelo changed his game plan in the last part of the fight and began to go after Mayweather to put pressure on him. Mayweather then changed game plans and used movement to stay out of the way of Canelo in the last four rounds. That’s the approach that Mayweather will likely use against Maidana on Saturday. Maidana isn’t as big as Canelo, but he’s just as dangerous and Mayweather will find that out quickly on Saturday.



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