By Ryan Maquiñana
Marcos Maidana’s trainer, Robert Garcia, told BoxingScene.com that there is still no resolution to the controversy surrounding his fighter’s gloves for tonight’s fight against Floyd Mayweather.
“It’s still not decided. That’s where we are right now,” Garcia said Saturday morning. “I don’t understand why they won’t allow us to use the red MX gloves that the commission approved.”
At Friday’s weigh-in, Mayweather objected to the light blue Everlast MX gloves because he believed they were backloaded with a lack of padding. The Nevada State Athletic Commission ruled that the light blue gloves were illegal. However, a second set of MX gloves -- red in color -- were introduced and subsequently allowed by the commission.
However, Mayweather still balked at the red MX gloves, pushing for Maidana to wear Grant gloves -- the same brand he will be using for the bout. Team Maidana then countered by offering to wear horsehair-padded Cleto Reyes brand gloves instead, but Mayweather’s camp dismissed that idea as well.
Garcia hopes that his fighter’s team, which also includes adviser Sebastian Contursi, stands firm. The trainer offered some examples to prove his point.
“Look, most of the fighters on the Fox (Sports 1) card last night were wearing the MX gloves,” Garcia said. “They’ll let (Marco Antonio) Periban wear Reyes against Mayweather’s own fighter, J’Leon Love. So how can they say that they’re concerned about the fighters’ health?”
Garcia also confirmed that Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer has inquired about Maidana possibly wearing a different type of Everlast gloves, namely the Protex brand. The Everlast website charactertizes Protex gloves as having “closed cell foam technology for hand safety.”
“They’re trying to get us to do that,” the trainer said, regarding the switch to a non-MX Everlast pair. “Again, we don’t have a problem wearing Everlast gloves. But I’ve never seen anything like this, where the commission approves a certain set of gloves, the MXs, but for some reason we’re not allowed to wear them. It’s bulls—t.”
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.
