By Dan Ambrose: Last night WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) lost what many boxing fans saw as a highly controversial 12 round majority decision to WBC champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. While the judges scored it in Mayweather’s favor by the scores of 116-112, 117-111, 114-114, Maidana remained convinced completely in his mind that he had won the fight.
Maidana wasn’t the only one who felt that he won the fight though, as his entire team and many fans in the crowd felt that Maidana had done enough to deserve a victory by a couple of points.
Maidana said after the fight “I have to give him [Mayweather] a rematch because I won the fight. Yes, I will give him the rematch. I’m not scared of him, so why not give him a rematch? I definitely think I won the fight. He did not fight like a man like I expected him to. He changed [my] gloves, I had bigger gloves, and I still gave him a great fight. He did dominate some rounds, but not the majority of them. I won the maximum amount of rounds.”
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said “Let’s do it again.”
Robert Garcia, the trainer for Maidana, then asked Schaefer “Can we get this time?” Garcia was referring to the fact that Maidana was forced to wear a different type of gloves for the fight than the usual Everlast MX gloves that he normally uses after his gloves were objected to by Mayweather and Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions.
Mayweather likely would have won the fight with ease if he had chosen to box Maidana the way he did his last two opponents Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, but Mayweather decided to stay in the pocket and fight off the ropes for most of the fight. The only time Mayweather deviated from his prearranged game plan was in the 9th and 10th rounds where he gave Maidana a small taste of what he’d given to Canelo and Guerrero. Maidana looked totally out of his element in those rounds, but Mayweather quickly reverted back to standing directly in front of Maidana in the 11th and 12th. It was almost a sympathy move by Mayweather, and it reminded me of how Muhammad Ali used to take it easy on his lesser opponents during his career.
Mayweather clearly stayed in 1st gear most of the fight on purpose. It actually worked out well for him because he still was able to get the victory, and now he’s got a rematch with Maidana that will bring him a lot more money than he’d get if he were to fight the likes of Amir Khan, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman.
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