By Dan Ambrose: Dan Rafael of ESPN sees former WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) as having fought as good as he possibly could in his previous fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KO’s) last May in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It’s all downhill from here if Mayweather comes out and shows that he can improve from his last performance by choosing to box Maidana instead of staying in the trenches with him like he did last time.
“He’s [Maidana] basically a one-trick pony,” Rafael said at ESPN. “If he’s not able to get his opponents with bombs and aggression, he’s not going to be able to out-box somebody, especially somebody of the caliber of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Can Maidana fight better than he did the first time around? I certainly doubt it. Can Floyd fight better than he did the last time? Certainly he can.”
Rafael sees it coming down to a situation where Maidana is going to get beaten unless Mayweather has lost a step all of a sudden due to him having aged overnight, and/or Maidana getting a lucky shot in that knocks Mayweather out. Barring that, Mayweather is going to win this fight.
The Mayweather-Maidana II rematch still isn’t official yet, but Mayweather did say last week that he plans on fighting Maidana on September 13th, so the fight will very likely take place unless some other more appealing opponent comes along for Mayweather or if Maidana asks for too much more for the rematch.
You can’t really blame Mayweather for taking the Maidana rematch because the names aren’t there for Mayweather to fight right now. If he faces guys like Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter, the numbers probably won’t be as good as they are for Maidana because he’s capable of attracting a lot of Mexican boxing fans to purchase the fight on PPV given that the fight will be taking place on the Mexican Independence Day weekend on September 13th.
Maidana isn’t Mexican, as he comes from Argentina, but he probably has a better chance of getting Mexican fans interested in the fight more so than Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter, neither of which has established a fan base for themselves yet. Fans might want to see Mayweather fight somebody else, but given the lack of names for him to fight right now, Maidana is clearly the best available opponent for him at this time.
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