Here's How Marcos Maidana Plans to Topple the Best Boxer in the World
By Showtime
Marcos Maidana gave Floyd Mayweather one of his closest fights ever on May 3, but didn’t do quite enough to hand the sport’s pound-for-pound king his first loss. So when it was announced in July that Maidana would get another shot at Mayweather on September 13 (fight card begins at 8 pm ET on Showtime PPV), it was time to get to work to figure out exactly what Maidana must do to score the biggest win of his career.
Via a clip from Showtime’s “ALL ACCESS: Mayweather vs. Maidana 2,” we have a glimpse into Maidana’s camp, and his fight strategy. Check out the highlights below and catch the full episode at 9:30 p.m. ET Saturday.
1. Put in more work.
Maidana’s trainer, Robert Garcia, says it himself: Maidana could have used more time to prep for the last fight.
Much of that was due to circumstances beyond Maidana’s control (his daughter was born in the weeks leading up to the fight), but the end result was five weeks of training, compared to eight this time. Maidana must make every second of those extra three weeks count.
2. Get Mayweather in tight spots.
Maidana relentlessly peppered Mayweather with punches last time, and the strategy paid off. Maidana landed more blows on Mayweather than anyone before. But he still only connected on 26 percent of his punches overall. His challenge in the rematch: throw as many punches as he can but connect on a greater percentage. That’s tough against a fighter of Mayweather’s caliber, and that’s why Garcia has Maidana working on cornering Mayweather so he can’t easily avoid getting hit.
3. Do some deceptive maneuvering.
Brute force isn’t enough to take down Mayweather. You must be tactically strong, too. That might mean a clever positioning fakeout. Or it might mean …
4. Secret sauce.
As much insight as we can glean from this look into Maidana’s camp, you can bet Maidana and Garcia are doing plenty they don’t want the cameras to catch. We won’t fully know what the plan is until he gets into the ring. For now, though, you can watch the All-Access excerpt below.