Maidana: When they took away my gloves, they took away my advantage

By Allan Fox: Former WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) isn’t too happy about his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) last Saturday night, because he feels that he was robbed by the judges in his 12 round majority decision loss at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana connected with over 200 shots on Mayweather, and kept him under constant pressure for the entire 12 rounds of the fight, yet the judges scored it 116-112, 117-111, and 114-114.

“I feel this was an injustice,” Maidana said. He thinks he did more than enough to deserve the win in the fight, and he boxing fans at ringside seemed to agree with him in mass judging by their boos at the final decision.

Maidana also isn’t happy about having to change his gloves from the Everlast MX custom gloves that he normally uses for his fights. The day before the fight Mayweather inspected the gloves and said he wouldn’t fight Maidana if he wore those pair. Mayweather felt that there was insufficient padding around the knuckles of the gloves, and the Nevada State Athletic Commission agreed with him. Maidana then had to change his gloves to a different type that had more padding around the knuckles in order to satisfy Mayweather and his team.

“When they took away my gloves, they took away my advantage,” Maidana said via LA Times. “If I would have had my gloves, I would have knocked him out.”

Maidana won’t get a chance to wear those gloves in the rematch with Mayweather in September, if there is a rematch. Mayweather will no doubt reject those same type of gloves if Maidana attempts to use them again. Mayweather says “I have a life after boxing…but what about our health?”

Maidana will have to agree to pretty much whatever type of gloves that Mayweather’s team are willing to accept if he wants that fight. It’s likely that the glove type will be written into the contract for the rematch though, because they’re not going to let it go until the last second like they did this time. Maidana can likely also expect other fighters to take issue with the type of gloves that he wears if he attempts to use the Everlast MX gloves against them. It’s very likely that he’ll have problems in the future if he tries to use those gloves against any opponent.