'Maidana Pacquiao's' handwriting on Mayweather's wall

'Maidana Pacquiao's' handwriting 
on Mayweather's wall

"Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it."
Adlai E. Stevenson

By Alex P. Vidal

As long as Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s main faculties are intact after 12 rounds, some Nevada ring judges don't have the guts yet to call spade a spade.
If they could snatch him away from the jaws of defeat, Dave Moretti and Burt A. Clements made sure Mayweather remained unblemished even if he looked like a kindergarten pupil pummeled from pillar to post by a gang of neighborhood homicidal maniacs.
It took a combination of Manny Pacquiao and Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) or "Maidana Pacquiao" to expose the flamboyant black fighter as a hogwash.
True to his reputation, Mayweather isn't a risk taker. He knows how to unwrap his safety nets if the enemy packs wallops in both fists. He has mastered the art of timing when to boob and weave to avoid his rival's bazooka-like bombs. Mayweather is allergic to a waterfront brawl thus exposing himself like a scared rabbit like what he did when he recently kept his WBA super welterweight diadem via majority decision, 116-112, 117-111, 114-114.

WOBBLY

Standing on wobbly legs each time he was trapped in the ring by the Argentine dynamo, who could be mistaken for a bull because of his ferocity and never-say-day attitude, Mayweather would mimic Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope style and gyrate his way to freedom and safety.
Piqued by his pretensions and copycat, Ali (56-5, 37 KOs) dared his fellow black American champion to test the mettle of the more dangerous Pacquiao. Ali must have seen "Maidana Pacquiao's" handwriting on Mayweather's wall. The same wall that Ali saw when Joe Frazier (32-4, 27 KOs) landed the "punch that shook the world" that toppled him with a big thud to the canvas like a deck of cards for a clean knockdown scored by Frazier, who retained his WBC and WBA heavyweight crowns by 15-round unanimous decision at the Madison Square Garden in New York on March 8, 1971.
Like Mayweather, Ali was also undefeated when he lost that epic battle against fellow unbeaten Frazier, whose style as a brawler was similar to Maidana and Pacquiao or "Maidana Pacquiao." Although he managed to avenge that embarrassing loss to Frazier twice (one in the "Thrilla in Manila" in 1975) in his comeback fight after being stripped of the world heavyweight crown for his refusal to to be drafted to the US Army to shoot the Vietcongs in the Vietnam War, the 1971 debacle against Frazier was registered in history as one of Ali's lousiest performances.    

MAJORITY

Mayweather's majority decision conquest of Maidana last May 3 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, failed to convince oddsmakers who are now contemplating on a rematch. Unheralded Maidana may or may not get the much-ballyhooed rematch in September, but one thing is for sure, he exposed Mayweather's Waterloo: gore him like a wounded bull and bedazzle him with blinding over right blows as he backpedals and attempts to use the ropes for sanctuary.
Against Manny Pacquiao in a dream match, Mayweather will continue to dig deeper in his bag of tricks to avoid being trapped under an avalanche of hooks and uppercuts and reach the limit for a decision win like what he did when he survived Juan Manuel Marquez (12-round unanimous decision), Shane Mosley (12-round unanimous decision), Miguel Angel Cotto (12-round unanimous decision), Robert Guerrero (12-round unanimous decision), Saul Alvarez (12-round majority decision), and Maidana.

MYSTERIOUS

Mayweather described the mysterious customer from Buenos Aires as "a hell of a fighter, a very tough competitor."
"Congratulations on your new baby. You have a beautiful family but in the next fight don’t hit me in the dick,” he declared during their post-fight press conference.
"Next time let me use my gloves," Maidana, 30, retorted. "I don’t know what to say. The truth is the fight was a good one. I did everything possible to win, but the work we did wasn’t enough for the judges. I don’t think anyone has ever attacked him and landed as much as I did. I pressed the action most of the fight. He’s a great boxer and he was able to manage a few moments in the fight…All I want is for this f--ker to give me a rematch!"
Next time, should promoters make a mistake of arranging a rematch, fight fans won't be able to see a repeat of the 1971 Ali-Frazier "punch the shook the world" because Mayweather will know how to play smart once more: boob and weave to avoid an opponent's scud missiles and rope-a-dope ala Muhammad Ali to escape a trip to dreamland.