Mayweather-Maidana II confirmed and why i’m not surprised

By Boxing News - 07/10/2014 - Comments

floyd888By Mohamed I: So it’s finally official, the Mayweather-Maidana rematch has been confirmed for September 13th at the MGM Grand. Honestly though, absolutely nobody should be surprised. It’s been known since his “comeback” that Mayweather will only fight at the MGM Grand (christened by some to stand for Mayweather Gets Money) and will not budge from fighting near Cinco de Mayo or Mexican Independence weekend. But why another Maidana fight? The simple reason?

It’s more money than the other limited options. It’s no big secret that Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather cares more about his payday than having a boxing legacy. It’s why he picks his fight for his profit rather than reputation and exactly why he’s giving the rematch to Maidana.

If you remember back to late 2013, the only big name in contention for the fabled Mayweather showdown was Amir Khan. He had fought two tomato cans since his KO loss to Danny Garcia in late 2012 and pulled out of a Devon Alexander fight believing he was guaranteed to fight Mayweather. Which he would’ve been, had it not been for Maidana surprisingly coming out of the shadows to humiliate Mayweather’s little brother Adrien Broner. It quickly became apparent that his stock was worth more than Khan’s had been for years and fans would be far more willing to pay to see him fight.

Discussing boxing of the day has always been a question of “what have you done recently?” and Maidana had simply done more than Khan. Regarding his September rematch we get back to the same question, Maidana gave Mayweather the second toughest fight of his career (the first being his clear-cut loss to Castillo) and that arrogant display was enough to help Maidana’s stock rise again regardless of the questionable decision. Personally, I don’t see how people can claim they fairly scored the fight whilst giving Mayweather at least 7 rounds but that doesn’t matter now. Maidana is the most logical fight Mayweather could get for September especially when you consider the only other realistic opponents would be recovering from fights (Lara, Canelo, Cotto), fighting on the other side of the cold war (Pacquiao, Bradley) or already have fights coming up (Garcia, Porter). Khan took himself out the running by saying he wouldn’t be able to fight in September because training while fasting during Ramadan is too difficult for him.

So there you have it, Maidana is pretty much the only option Mayweather could pick for a profitable fight that can and will be sold as a rematch with a score to settle. This was completely expected unless for some strange reason you thought he’d fight the relatively unknown Keith Thurman. As for Mayweather’s promised surprise in May, I don’t think it will be a planned surprise because there’s quite a few months left on the boxing calendar between now and May and that’s plenty of time to impress. It’s never too late to increase your boxing stock, just ask Miguel Cotto.



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