By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) is using a mix of fast, slick and powerful sparring partners to get him ready for his rematch against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) on September 13th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Maidana’s sparring partners are as follows: Super featherweight Mikey Garcia, light welterweight Thomas Dulorme and welterweight Steve Forbes.
Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KOs) is the most unusual of the sparring partners for Maidana, because he’s rail thin with a much smaller frame. However, Mikey has good hand speed and power that is above the average super featherweight. He doesn’t have the ability to stand with Maidana without getting pummeled, as seen in their sparring before Maidana’s previous fight against Mayweather. Maidana was able to walk through Mikey’s shots and nail him with big power shots.
Thomas Dulorme (21-1, 14 KOs) is probably the best sparring partner that Maidana has because he’s got excellent power and hand speed. He’s obviously not as good as Mikey in terms of his ability to dominate the division he’s fighting in, but he’s perfect for Maidana to help him get ready for Mayweather. Dulorme has more size than Mikey, so he’s able to stand in the pocket better to give Maidana quality rounds.
Steve Forbes (35-13, 11 KOs) is a slick fighter that’s been round the game a long time. At 37, Forbes is the same age as Mayweather and capable of using a lot of tricks to get Maidana ready for this fight.
Whether Maidana is capable of learning from the things that Forbes shows him is unknown. Maidana is one of those fighters that just plows straight ahead each time he fights without much variation. He fights with a plan-A without any real backup plan to speak off. If his forward slugging style fails to work, then he ends up losing his fights.
Maidana’s plan for beating Mayweather appears to be more of the same as the previous one he used last May. Maidana will be going straight after Mayweather and will be looking to throw a massive amount of punches in each round to try and take him out or outwork him.
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