By Yannis Mihanos: Last Saturday night I witnessed a different kind of fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KO’s) having to struggle against WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was not very surprised by Maidana as he did what he was supposed to do, he talked the talk and walked the walk.
From round 1, Maidana did what he’s good at: Being aggressive and he stayed that way for the entire 12 rounds of the fight in hunting and hitting Mayweather with everything he had. Of course, that was not an easy task for Maidana to land his big shots against the hard to hit Mayweather.
Mayweather is very elusive, as he showed in his recent victories over Robert Guerrero and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, both of which Mayweather got victories over. Maidana too, misfired a lot but he created many problems.
The key was that Maidana showed no respect and no fear of Mayweather. He was not intimidated by this high stage event and certainly not by Floyd. Marcos clearly came to win, unlike most recent opponents of Floyd (Guerrero and Alvarez), both of which looked and acted completely out of place and certainly didn’t have the same hunger that Maidana showed. The gloves controversy, which took place the night before the Mayweather-Maidana fight, failed to play any role in Maidana’s performance except maybe a few thousands more PPV sales that it generated and that was good for business.
Maidana stood aggressive as he showed from round 1 that he was not an average opponent. He pushed Mayweather many times and tried to upset him.
Mayweather felt very uncomfortable. That was another key of trainer Garcia’s plan: never allow Floyd to get comfortable in the fight like he normally is. The end result came no surprise to me. Mayweather won. I do believe that the margin of victory was small (maybe 7-5), so I didn’t find very much controversy in that.
It’s been a long time since someone has given really tough time to Mayweather, since the first Jose Luis Castillo fight in 2002.
It was a big surprise to me that Mayweather had to struggle so much to beat Maidana. Is it the sign of times? Is the reign of Floyd about to be over?
Maidana with his aggression paved the way for many others to watch and think that indeed Mayweather can be beaten. Floyd has still 3 games left on his contract with Showtime. What it will be his next step nobody knows. Immediately after the end of the fight the idea for a rematch was suggested to him by the reporter and Mayweather was open to that idea of facing Maidana a second time.
It makes sense for a rematch, because Maidana proved that he is more than a challenger and I take my hat off to him. There is also the name of Manny Pacquiao as a choice for a future opponent for Mayweather, a choice that cannot be discarded by anyone and especially by Floyd as he is a proven and a very much today’s champion.
Comments are closed.