By Chris Williams: IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Danny Garcia’s father Angel Garcia doesn’t see why WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) is bothering with giving a rematch against Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) after having beaten him previously last May by a 12 round majority decision.
Angel felt that it was a clear win for Mayweather over Maidana, and he doesn’t see any point in Mayweather wasting his time going backwards with his career to give a guy a rematch that doesn’t deserve one.
Angel’s biggest reason for why he doesn’t think Maidana rates a rematch is because he came into the fight over 160 last May, and Angel says that he was a middleweight when he fought Mayweather.
“I would have never given Maidana a rematch,” Angel said via Thaboxingvoice.com. “I don’t even know why Floyd’s doing it, honestly. I would have never given him a rematch because he [Maidana] came in as a middleweight at 160 pounds. They should have guidelines on that. If you’re fighting at 147, then you should not be any more than 152. I’m saying there should be a law against that. For any weight division, no more than 10 pounds. Floyd was 148, man. This guy’s [Maidana] a middleweight. Floyd still won to me.”
Maidana actually weighed 165 pounds against Mayweather, not 160 like Angel says. 165 = super middleweight. Maidana was three pounds away from the upper limit of the super middleweight division, and yeah, it was definitely difficult for the 148 pound Mayweather to be fighting a guy with a 17 pound weight advantage in the fight.
Boxing does need rules about how much a fighter can rehydrate, and these rules need to be followed across the board by all the sanctioning bodies instead of just one or two. When you have fighters dehydrating 20+ in order to get an advantage of fighting smaller guys in a division that’s not suited to their body, it sets up an uneven playing field. Angel thinks 10 pounds should be the max amount of weight that a fighter should rehydrate.
I think that’s fair. 5-8 pounds would be even better because it would prevent a lot of these fighters from gaming the system. They would be forced to fight in the weight divisions that is the norm for their body size. You wouldn’t see middleweights melting down to 154 to fight smaller guys in that weight class or at 147.
Mayweather gave Maidana a rematch because there really wasn’t anyone else available for him to fight right now. He’s already beaten all the top guys, and Maidana is an entertaining fighter. It was a good choice by Mayweather. If he didn’t fight Maidana, he’d be stuck fighting guys with little fan base in the U.S like Amir Khan, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman.
Those guys aren’t popular enough for Mayweather to waste a fight with them. Maidana at least can bring in the fans and keep Mayweather busy while he waits for guys like Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to get freed up.
Mayweather is too good for the welterweight division right now, and that’s why the only real competition is coming from guys in the 154 pound division right now. It would be good if Danny Garcia would step up to 147 soon to give Mayweather some new blood, because he’s cleaned out the division.
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