Maidana-Mayweather: The Emperor’s naked again

By Boxing News - 05/06/2014 - Comments

floyd7712By Rasheed Catapang: WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KO’s) was amazing again last Saturday in defeating WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Running away with the win as expected, in a fight were Maidana beat the stuffing out of him. That Floyd has kept his unbeaten professional record intact after the Maidana fight is truly remarkable.

Maidana, hand-picked by Mayweather and the perfect foil to make him shine, obviously didn’t read the script. Or if he did, then he wisely decided not to follow it. He gave Floyd 12 rounds of hell, delivering a sustained destructive attack Mayweather had not accounted for. Maidana morphed into a crazy but better Jose Luis Castillo – the exact type of fighter Floyd has always been avoiding, a volume puncher in his prime – and showed Mayweather the boss wears a blue “sombrero”.

But like Jose Luis Castillo, who was robbed of the win when he fought Floyd in 2002, Maidana officially lost the fight. No gross injustice was committed, though, because it’s been established beforehand that it’s Mayweather’s world we’re living in. And in this world two rules apply:

1. Floyd’s perfect record is the central truth and sole constant, and;

2. All things must bend to sustain rule number one.

The judges, just as CJ Ross & Duane Ford before them, simply complied.

Sometime later, the greatest boxer ever tweeted he’d hope to see Mayweather rumble with Pacquiao. Ali’s not getting his wish.

Manny Pacquiao is Maidana with wings. And Mayweather, after getting his backside kicked by Maidana, is now fully cognizant that Pacquiao is not merely the embodiment but also the realization of all his fears. The road to Floyd’s defeat is thus forever blocked.

And so Floyd will keep his perfect record. But that does not make Floyd the best boxer of his generation. Not when the best boxer of the last decade was Pacquiao – a time when Floyd was at the peak of his powers.

Not when on one Saturday, Maidana overwhelmed Mayweather. And the one in the blue “sombrero” owned the night.



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