Mayweather vs. Maidana 2 Results: Rematch Highlights Boxing's Star-Power Problem
Saturday night's Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana card was titled "Mayhem," which in retrospect may be the most ironic boxing pay-per-view title in recent memory. A more apt descriptor would have been Mundane. Morose. Monotonous.
Up to and including the main event, the fights at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino were colorless. The crowd was utterly devoid of life, save for precious few opportunities to pour out their enthusiasm with overly raucous cheers. Seriously, the crowd acted like a group of comatose sleepers violently awakened from their dream anytime anything remotely good happened.
And for good reason.
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James de la Rosa pulled a slight upset over Alfredo Angulo, but it was Angulo's third straight loss. The fight was perhaps better proof that Angulo needs to step away from the sport for a while than anything. Leo Santa Cruz pulverized the anonymous Manuel Roman in two rounds. Mickey Bey defeating Miguel Vazquez was a legitimate surprise, but all anyone talked about coming out of the fight was judge Robert Hoyle's reprehensible 119-109 score in Bey's favor.
Then there was Floyd. Oft-criticized but never defeated Floyd. Mayweather was so far ahead on cards and knew it to such a degree that he literally punted the 12th round.
Many came out of Saturday night crowing about a "vintage Mayweather" performance, and to some extent they were correct. Mayweather was as engaged as the night he demoralized Canelo Alvarez last September. His feet were bouncing from side to side, up and down and I think he even curtsied once in an effort to keep Maidana from getting in stationary punches. The match was typical in how Mayweather took exactly what his opponent wanted to do—pound him against the ropes—and stripped it away, seemingly without even the slightest of efforts.
It was a master craftsman doing what he does best. Floyd Mayweather is to boxing what Ron Swanson is to wooden furniture.
But wasn't the entire 36-minute ordeal entirely expected? Were we not just bludgeoned in the head with facts we already knew? Mayweather, when at his best, is on an entirely different playing field. What was shocking about the first fight wasn't anything that Maidana did; it was what Floyd didn't do. He wasn't able to fend off Maidana's bulldog tactics and keep him off the ropes.
With months to prepare, Mayweather's eureka moment was inevitable. Defanged by Mayweather's defensive tactics, Maidana was reduced to an inaccurate puncher who wasn't even throwing all that many solid blows.
"Look, he's been the best fighter in the world for 10 years now," Robert Garcia, Maidana's trainer, told reporters. "What can you do?"
Garcia hits the nail on the head. Which, of course, is precisely the problem. Mayweather's likely next opponent is Amir Khan, a 27-year-old Englishman who last earned a unanimous-decision victory over Luis Collazo in May. Khan has a fight scheduled for later this year but is yet to book an opponent.
Which, again, is precisely the problem.
There are no opponents. Boxing's biggest star is also one of the most polarizing sports figures on the planet; his sheer presence atop the sport alienates gaggles of casual fans who might otherwise spend their Saturday nights watching a fight. Anyone who doesn't have mixed feelings about shelling out $60 or $70 to line Floyd Mayweather's pockets either lives a blissfully ignorant lifestyle devoid of a news cycle or is much better at compartmentalization than I.
But you hit the "buy now" or drive to the bar or head to a friend's house because it's a Floyd Mayweather fight.
He's the only star of the show who connotes enough national attention to trick you into thinking he's worth the price of admission. Manny Pacquiao has never entirely won over American audiences, and his cloak of invisibility disappeared in the sea of thousands of memes after being knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez. Wladimir Klitschko hasn't fought in the United States in six years and seems to have more interest in crocheting sweaters than he does becoming one of sport's biggest names.
Andre Ward is great, but he doesn't have Mayweather's sense of showmanship; you can subsist on being boring inside or outside the ring, just not both. Alvarez will have to engender years worth of goodwill for the public to begin trusting his superstar status again after the way Mayweather so thoroughly dismantled him. Gennady Golovkin might have to fight someone who isn't a total patsy someday.
These are guys who, if you squint your eyes, cock your head sideways and drink a fifth of gin might look like future superstars. If anything, Saturday's Mayweather-Maidana fight proved just how star-starved the sport is. People will pay for anything—and I mean anything—to relish in brief moments one gets to spend with a superstar.
This is, if you have not noticed, a directive meant for boxing diehards. Just as it's not an indictment on people who love tennis to wonder what happens for the women's sport when Serena Williams vanishes. Just as it's fair to wonder if Rory McIlroy will ever adequately fill the shoes left from Tiger Woods.
Some of that is natural fear related to fandom of individual sports; folks decades ago were wondering if anyone could match the spectacle of Chris Evert and Jack Nicklaus. In time, the Woodses and Williamses came through with flashes that matched or even surpassed their predecessors. In time, it's likely another superstar will come through and possess as much star power as Mayweather.
I'm just not sure when. Garcia's quote was illuminating not because he admitted Floyd was the best; we already knew that. It was him putting into context just how long he's been atop the sport, all the while with only a handful of challenges you could even feign to call legitimate.
Mayweather has dominated this long, kept his star power despite his out-of-ring issues because there is no one. There has been no one. And, even when the boxing world starts to convince the world there is a true "challenger," Mayweather takes him out to the woodshed like Alvarez.
I found myself wondering why I'd wasted time on a fight with a pre-determined outcome Saturday night. But, after a while, it hit me. People aren't buying Mayweather fights because they love him or his fighting style or even his superstardom. They're buying the spectacle. They're buying the classic Americana feeling that comes with high-profile prize fights.
And, most importantly, they're clinging on for dear life to the last vestige whose name alone can make that all happen. Boxing is fine as long as Floyd Mayweather comes around. Even on nights as bad as Saturday. But I can't help but wonder what's next.
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter
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