Whatever difficulties pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. had in his first fight against Marcos Maidana in May, they are ancient history.
Mayweather put on a boxing master class in their rematch, cruising to a unanimous decision to retain his welterweight and junior middleweight world titles on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
The judges had it 116-111, 116-111 and 115-112, all for Mayweather, who took much less punishment than he did the last time out.
The fight was a far cry from the action-packed first fight on May 3, when they met to unify welterweight titles and Maidana nearly pulled the upset. He gave Mayweather perhaps the most difficult fight of his brilliant unbeaten career, but Mayweather won a majority decision, also at the MGM Grand.
So with no other obvious opponent — a Manny Pacquiao fight, as everyone knows, is simply not happening at this point — Mayweather granted Maidana a rematch, only the second of his career.
Whatever studying he did on the first fight was more than enough as Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs), 37, of Las Vegas, didn’t allow Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs), 31, of Argentina, to land the kind of heavy overhand right hands he did in the first bout and he didn’t allow Maidana to put him on the ropes as much as last time. Instead, Mayweather danced, moved, countered and kept the fight in the center of the ring for long stretches in a very effective tactical performance.
Denisa Davis
Yes, yes, YES !!!!!