Mayweather rejects second pair of Maidana gloves: Fight is in limbo

By Boxing News - 05/02/2014 - Comments

may23(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: After today’s weigh-in, Floyd Mayweather objected to a pair of gloves that Marcos Maidana wanted to wear for tommororw night’s fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana reportedly wanted to wear a red pair of Everlast MX gloves, but Mayweather rejected those gloves after inspecting them and finding that there was inadequate padding around the knuckles of the gloves.

According to Yahoo Sports, Francisco Aguilar, the chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, also inspected Maidana’s Everlast MX gloves and rejected them as being suitable for the fight. Another set of Everlast MX gloves were then presented as a replacement for the rejected ones, and Aguilar approved that set of gloves.

Unfortunately, Mayweather objected to those gloves as well. But Aguilar already approved the gloves as being suitable for the fight. As of now, Mayweather and Maidana’s team are meeting in private to come up with a good solution in terms of finding a pair that both sides can agree on.

What further complicates this is Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellberbe suddenly saying “No fight,” following the meeting with Maidana’s team.

Maidana is now in the position where he’ll very likely need to bend to whatever glove type that Mayweather wants for the fight. Of course, Maidana can refuse to change his gloves considering that the second set were already approved by Aguilar, but that would be a risky thing for Maidana to do.

If Mayweather does actually pull out of the fight, Maidana would miss out on a lifetime payday fight. In that case, the Amir Khan vs. Luis Collazo fight would likely be moved up to the main event in order to save the card and the Adrien Broner vs. Carlos Molina fight would be the co-feature bout. Those are two pretty big stars, but it would be very surprising if the fight brought in move than 100,000 pay-per-view buys with Mayweather pulling out of the fight.

Mayweather would lose out on $32 million for the fight that he was scheduled to make. While it’s possible to line him up with another opponent for a fight that could take place in the near future, it would still take at least 3-4 months before it would happen. Mayweather’s need to be marketed, and you can’t do that quickly.



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