Maidana plans on throwing more body shots against Mayweather this time

By Boxing News - 07/20/2014 - Comments

_DSC7379(Photo credit: Idris Erba) By Allan Fox: One of the mistakes that Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) feels he made the last time he fought Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) was by head-hunting too much when he had him trapped against the ropes last May.

Maidana spent much of the time trying to club Mayweather with shots that frequently missed by a wide margin with them flying over his head. Maidana failed to make corrections by lightening up on his power so that he could improve his accuracy, and most of all he feels that he failed to direct punches to the body of Mayweather where he was a lot more vulnerable.

Mayweather won the fight by a 12 round majority decision by the scores 116-112, 117-111 and 114-114. Maidana thinks he deserved the decision, but not too many other people thought he did enough to deserve getting the victory.

“I made some mistakes in the fight. I wasted some shots upstairs that I should have used on the body. This fight will be totally different,” Maidana said to Boxingsocialist.com. He’s nervous this time. He’s afraid and I know it…That’s why he won’t let me wear my gloves because he’s afraid of me.”

If Maidana commits to the body, he’s going to need to be careful that he doesn’t leave his head open too much, because Mayweather does well against guys that focus on throwing body shots. That’s one of the reasons why so few of his opponents try that kind of tactic against him. When they lower their heads to throw body shots, Mayweather nails them with straight punches to the head over and over again.

Maidana can throw more body shots, to be sure, but he’s not going to be able to throw mainly body shots, because Mayweather will dodge them and connect with straight right hands and left hooks. Maidana might just be undermining himself if he puts his focus on throwing body shots instead of mixing things up a little bit more this time.

Maidana seems to equate the so-called fear that he sees in Mayweather’s eyes with him not being capable of fighting at a high levels. If Mayweather is fearful of Maidana like he seems to think is the case, it’s likely going to help Mayweather rather than help Maidana in the rematch. Maidana shouldn’t get it twisted that the fear that he sees in Mayweather means he’s going to give in and fight at less than his top ability.

Maidana needs to forget about what he sees in Mayweather’s eyes and focus on more concrete things such as improving his own stamina. More than anything that’s what Maidana needs to improve on for him to have a chance at beating Mayweather. Wasting time talking about how scared Mayweather looks, the gloves that he can’t wear, and how he plans on throwing more body shots, these are things that are time wasters for Maidana. He’s got to stay smart. The only thing he can do is try and improve his stamina, because if he does do that then he’s going to fade late like he always does in his fights and lose.



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