The first fight made it seem like Floyd Mayweather is slipping and letting age slow him down. His second bout with Marcos Maidana ended those speculations, as the undefeated Welterweight and Light Middleweight champion won through a unanimous decision, not leaving any room for doubt this time.
Was it a great performance from Mayweather? No. But it was good enough to stay away from big hits and getting himself cut. No flurry of big overhead right hands from Maidana, who got constantly jabbed and made to miss. Mayweather, as always, didn’t land hits with any kind of power, but didn’t miss, avoided the ropes this time and spent the entire 12th round simply running away from Maidana, knowing the only thing separating him from his 46th win was simply avoiding the knockout.
Mayweather connected on an impressive 51% of his punches, landing 166 of them. Maidana was the busier fighter but even though he managed to hit Mayweather in the face a few times, none of those hits had actual effect. The crowd, pro Maidana of course, was obviously quite rowdy at those moments, but those cheers didn’t have anything to do with the final decision, scoring the fight 116-111, 116-111 and 115-112 in Mayweather’s favor.
The most memorable moment from the fight was Mayweather claiming Maidana bit him in the 8th round. Maidana managed to bull rush him into the ropes during the fifth round, managing to shake Mayweather up a bit with a couple of right hands before things went back to normal: Mayweather having his way in the center of the ring. Maidana did seem to bite Mayweather according to the replays, but he had a humorous response to it all.
Maybe he thinks I’m a dog, but I never bit him. He was rubbing my ass that round. He may have had his glove in my mouth, but I never bit him. If the judges want to give the fight to fighters that run, they can give it to him. I was attacking all the time. Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that I was the aggressor. I kept my plan to be aggressive but he kept holding and pushing. I don’t want to waste my time with a third fight. I trained with all my heart to get this type of result. This is not fair. There’s not reason for another fight.
Maidana seemed confused at the end of the ninth round, walking towards the wrong corner until Mayweather pointed him in the right direction, bringing a big laugh from the fans.
Mayweather made at least $32 million from this fight, and now has two left on his six-fight deal with Showtime before he retires, although he has already left the sport once or twice during his career. What’s next for him? Hard to say. It’s hard to find a fight that actually will generate interest other than Pacquiao fighting him, but there are so many roadblocks and hurdles to make that one actually happen, maybe it’s wise to remain more than cautious about that one actually happening.