By Ryan Maquiñana
Floyd Mayweather put on his promoter’s hat Saturday as he held court during a press conference at the MGM Grand announcing his May 3 welterweight unification clash with Marcos Maidana.
“Marcos Maidana is nonstop action,” Mayweather said. “He comes straight ahead, cut the ring off and he loves to brawl. But he throws awkward shots from long distance that make things happen in fights.
"So it’s obvious. He’s world champion; I’m world champion, so we just have to see how this fight plays out on May 3rd, but this is a guy I know I cannot overlook.”
Maidana (35-3, 31 KOs) is coming off a landmark win over then-titleholder Adrien Broner, and when asked if the Argentine posed a viable threat with his trademark pressure, Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs) answered in the affirmative.
“He was able to get close to Adrien Broner, and Adrien Broner has very, very good defense,” Mayweather said. “I got to prepare for everything. Maidana does a lot of things well. I can’t say he does everything great, but he does a lot of things well. That’s why he’s world champion now.”
Though British star Amir Khan emerged as the front-runner to the land the fight in an online poll conducted by Mayweather himself, boxing’s pound-for-pound king cited Maidana’s recent track record to state the case for the Argentine brawler.
“Well this guy Maidana, he’s very, very relentless. A lot of times, people want to say, ‘Why did you choose Maidana over (Amir) Khan?’ Look at his last four fights, and look at Khan’s last four fights. I had to go with the best choice. He’s made a big impact on the sport of boxing with his last fight.”
Regardless of his foe’s identity, Mayweather expects to line his pockets once again on May 3.
“Once again, for the record, Floyd Mayweather is not scared of no opponent. I don’t duck or dodge nobody, but like I said before, I earned my stripes, so I can pick and choose who I want -- I fight who I want to fight. No one is forced to watch me, but May 3rd we had a sellout.” (NOTE: Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer interjected and said that over 14,700 out of 16,000 tickets have been sold.)
On the heels of the most lucrative pay-per-view bout in history against Canelo Alvarez last September, it’s hard to argue against Mayweather’s claims.
“I’m sitting back just robbing the bank," Mayweather said. "Hopefully I could rob ‘em for a good $70 million on this go-around. Hopefully.”
Ryan Maquiñana was the boxing producer for NBCOlympics.com during London 2012 and writes a boxing column for CSNBayArea.com. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and Ring Magazine's Ratings Panel. E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com , check out his blog at Norcalboxing.com or follow him on Twitter @RMaq28.
