Pound-for-pound boxing king Floyd Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs) will fight Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 3 on a Showtime PPV card.The matchup left one fighter, Amir Khan, fuming after he thought he would be the man in the opposite corner.
Mayweather took to Twitter to make the official announcement:
Mayweather is in the middle of a lucrative six-fight deal with Showtime. He enjoyed comfortable wins over Robert Guerrero and Saul Canelo Alvarez in his first two outings, and then he took the novel approach of asking the public to vote for his May opponent. The choice was between the fast, technical-but-weak-chinned Khan, and the teak-tough and heavy-handed Maidana from Argentina.
Khan gave up the chance to fight for a world title in December to be available for the May fight, and Maidana earned his spot in the Mayweather sweepstakes by easily dispatching the vastly over-hyped Adrien Broner in his last fight. Khan won the public vote between the two, and when he heard he would not fight “Money,” he was apoplectic.
Fighting Mayweather means making a career payday and fighting on the biggest stage of all, but can Maidana really hope to be the first man to do what no man before him has done?
Let’s look at the challenger, he can punch like a mule, has a hell of a chin and his technical skills have improved greatly in recent fights.
But Mayweather has fought and dispatched guys with this skill set many times during his career, and if his last two outings are anything to go by, then his advancing years have neither dulled his reflexes nor his appetite to keep the Money train on the Showtime track rolling along. Maidana has a puncher’s chance, but Mayweather will fancy his chances in this one.
