Floyd Mayweather Narrowly Beats Marcos Maidana, Comes The Closest He Has Come To Losing A Fight In Years
This fight was supposed to be a blowout.
It turned into something else entirely.
The judges had Mayweather winning 117-111, 116-112, 114-114.
It was much closer than that, though. Most people thought Mayweather won, but it was way, way tighter than 117-111.
In an interview after the fight, Maidana said he thought he'd won.
Maidana turned it into a brawl in the early rounds, continually pushing Mayweather into the ropes and mauling him with a stream of punches that only occasionally landed, but still threw Floyd off his game.
There was a ton of this:
Mayweather fights are typically dull. He sizes up his opponents in the early rounds, assess their weaknesses, and then meticulously racks up points by exposing those weaknesses with defense and counter-punching.
That didn't happen tonight.
This was a brawl. Maidana even tackled him through the ropes at one point:
But as the fight wore on Floyd found a rhythm. From the 7th round on, Maidana lost a bit of steam and Floyd started to employ the counter punching that made him the best fighter in the world:
Still, Maidana thought he won. When the final bell rang, he put his hands up:
Floyd won fair and square, but this was still a shocking fight.
You don't see Floyd get mauled, look anxious in the ring, get cut, or have to conform to his opponent's style. He did all of that on Saturday.
Here are the official scorecards. Floyd won three out of the last four rounds on all three cards (via ESPN):
