Showtime will be televising the first episode of the ALL ACCESS: Mayweather vs. Maidana 2 episodes at 9:30 pm ET/PT on Sho. The episode will chronicle the buildup to the Mayweather-Maidana 2 rematch on 9/13 on Showtime pay-per-view. Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) and Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) will be seen preparing for their all-important “Mayhem” rematch from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Despite the closeness of their previous fight, few boxing fans are giving Maidana much of a chance of beating Mayweather in the rematch. The belief is that Mayweather intentionally dumbed down his game last May to give Maidana a handicap to make it interesting for boxing fans to watch it. It’s like a great chess player handicapping himself against a novice to let the game go longer rather winning the match in the least amount of moves.
Maidana and Mayweather will be seen tonight on All Access getting ready for their fight. Maidana is trained by Robert Garcia, who believes that Maidana can win this fight if he’s able to throw nonstop punches for 3 minutes of every round.
Maidana did well last time in throwing a huge amount of shots against Mayweather last May. But Maidana didn’t have the stamina to keep fighting at a high pace for the full fight, and this enabled Mayweather to capitalize on his fatigue in the 2nd half of the fight to win a 12 round decision.
Mayweather’s trainer Floyd Sr wants him to stay off the ropes for this fight, and stay in the center of the ring to take advantage of his superior hand speed. It’s unclear whether Mayweather has the legs to stay at center ring at this point in his career.
If you look at Mayweather’s last three fights against Maidana, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Robert Guerrero, you can see that Mayweather frequently had his back against the ropes in what appeared to be a way for him to rest his legs. It worked for him against Guerrero and Canelo, but it backfired against Maidana. Mayweather ended up getting hit a lot by Maidana because of his decision to stand with his back against the ropes.