Unbeaten Mayweather taken all the way

THE boos the antiMayweather crowd clouded appreciation of the way the prize-ring’s Money man had just earned his millions with his fighting heart as well as his phenomenal talent.

The heart of everybody in the packed MGM Grand Garden went out to Marcos Maidana for his heroic assault on the greatest boxer on the planet.

Floyd Mayweather was given the roughest, toughest night of his recent years as Maidana launched his feared missile of a right hand repeatedly – and early on landed too frequently for the great man’s comfort.

Yet there was no robbery here, no failure in the judging the like of which has betrayed so many fights and the hard old game itself of late.

But given the crowd’s two- fold reaction – raw excitement as well as boiling resentment of the majority decision by which Mayweather added the WBA world welterweight title to his WBC belt – it looks as if they will have to do it all again.

Mayweather promised as much, Maidana demanded as much. It looks a done deal, back here on the Las Vegas Strip in September.

That will not disappoint Amir Khan as much as it might appear at first glance after his preceding victory over Luis Collazo, since he had already said that his fasting observance of Ramadan would not give him time to train for that date.

Khan will be hoping Mayweather fends off Maidana again and meets him next May.

For the moment, all the boxing public want is this rematch.

Having come through a thunderstorm of early Maidana attacks to flex his genius in the crucial middle rounds, Mayweather feels confident enough to oblige.

He says; “If this is what the fans want, I will give it to them.”

Maidana sounds as if he would do it tomorrow, saying: “I thought I won. If they had not taken my gloves away from me I would have knocked him out.”

That was a reference to a prefight dispute over gloves which Mayweather argued were not properly padded.

But if the Argentinian feels they would have given him that much of an advantage they were probably improper anyway.

Whatever the arguments, this was one helluva fight.

Maidana stormed out from the first bell and went on to connect with 221 punches, the most to land on the best defensive fighter in the world since computer statistics were introduced.

Yet Mayweather still found a way to win, comfortably by the scoring on the cards of two of the judges. Where the third official got a draw from is a mystery which he will have trouble explaining.

Maidana did get off to a flyer. Those booming rights won him two of the first five rounds and a share of another.

But Mayweather never flinched, rode out the storm and went on to box and frequently outscore Maidana with brilliant, hurtful accuracy of punching with both hands.

The styles – Maidana the brawler and Mayweather the purist – made for a thriller.

Mayweather was cut beside the right eye in the fourth and praised his corner-men for a repair job which prevented blood from bothering him in subse- quent rounds.

Both men were warned during the rougher of the exchanges and one grapple was so intense that they fell through the ropes locked in a deathly embrace.

When they stepped back from each other for the last time Maidana accused Mayweather of “not fighting like a man as I expected him to”.

That was churlish. No one has to box in a way which suits his opponent and it was Mayweather’s defensive mastery and his precision counter-attack which enabled him to pick his way safely through this minefield.

As he says: “Great champions can survive and then adjust to anything. “That’s what I did.” If he does get to do it again, the world will be watching from the edge of its seat. – Daily Mail