By Aragon Garcia: Marcos Maidana is serious about his comeback, and he already has plans on fighting three times in 2019 in June, September and December. The 35-year-old Maidana has lost 31 pounds since starting his training for his back four weeks ago, and he’s now down to 187 pounds, according to ESPN Deportes. Maidana started his training came four weeks ago at 218 lbs.
Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) has four months to lose the remainder of the weight to get down to around 150 lbs. Maidana’s first fight back is expected to be at a catch-weight of 152 lbs against Phil Lo Greco in September. Although Maidana was at his best in the low 160s when he was fighting at welterweight, his training team wants to get him down to 150 lbs. That’s quite low for a welterweight. 150 would be a good weight if Maidana were to move back down to 140, but definitely not 147. 150 might be too low for Maidana to weigh for his fights at welterweight. If Maidana’s competition at welterweight are rehydrating into the mid-160s, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to be weighing 150 lbs.
Maidana is working with former Manny Pacquiao’s strength & conditioning trainer Alex Ariza, who has made excellent progress in burning the weight off. Maidana four months to lose 27 lbs. It’s going to be a cinch for him to take off the extra weight. He took off 31 lbs in just one month. Throughout Maidana’s career, he’s always been very good at stripping off weight to get ready for his fights, so this shouldn’t be all that surprising that he’s taking the weight off so quickly. The only worries now is if Maidana takes too much weight off for his comeback fight, and winds up a little weight drained when he fights in September. But even if Maidana is weight drained, he’ll be okay because he’s facing Phil Lo Greco, a fighter that was recently knocked out in the first round by Amir Khan last year.
“Everything will be ready when we pick up the pace for Marcos to campaign at 147 pounds. We are already on track and we want three fights in June, September and December, so in this June fight maybe they will give him a few more pounds, but we do not see more problem so that it can go down to 147,” said Ariza to ESPN Deportes.
As far the guys that Maidana is targeting for his comeback, he wants Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner for starters. If Maidana beats those guys, then an obvious choice would be Errol Spence Jr. and/or Keith Thurman. Whether Maidana fights either of those will depend on how he does in his earlier fights of his comeback. Obviously, Maidana won’t be fighting Thurman or Spence if he gets beaten by Lo Greco, Broner or Pacquiao. It’s too early to know how well Maidana will do when he returns to the ring in June, because he hasn’t fought since September 2014 when he as beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their rematch.
Maidana’s vaunted punching power still looks very evident in watching him workout with trainer Vladimir Baldenebro. However, Maidana is still close to 190 lbs, and that added weight obviously makes him power more devastating. The real test will be to see whether Maidana’s power is still there when Ariza boils him down all the way to 150 lbs like he wants to. If Maidana still has his punching power after losing 60 lbs of weight, he’s going to be an immediate threat to a lot of the top welterweights in the division. What we don’t know is if Maidana’s stamina and punch resistance will still be there. In his prime, Maidana always had excellent stamina and a good chin. The only fight where Maidana has problems taking big shots was in his shootout against Victor Ortiz in June 2009. Maidana was dropped three times in that fight in getting put down in the first and twice more in the second round. Maidana came back to knock Ortiz down in the third, and then stop him in the sixth round when Ortiz quit suddenly.
“I’m sure Maidana beat Mayweather, I love Mayweather and I’ve worked with him, but for me he won,” Ariza said about Maidana’s fights with Mayweather.
A lot of boxing fans think Maidana deserved a win over Mayweather in their first fight in May 2014. In the second bout, most fans believe that Mayweather did enough to deserve the victory, although it was still a close fight. As well as Maidana fought Mayweather, it was surprise that the Argentinian knockout artist retired afterwards. He walked away from the game in the prime of his career, which is something that happens only rarely with fighters nowadays. Now five years later, Maidana is going to try and pick up where he left off in 2014, and go after the top guys at 147 to win world title. There’s a lot of money to be made for Maidana.