Bob Arum may hold a grudge like nobody else in boxing, but in some ways, he was right when he decried the competitiveness (or lack thereof) of the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Marcos Maidana this Saturday at the MGM Grand.
In Arum’s mind, we only need to look at Maidana’s odds to beat the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world today.
7/1.
7-to-freakin’-1.
Let’s just lay it out on the table here. Maidana has no chance to beat Mayweather. To be fair, he’s a pretty rough and tough dude that knows nothing except to stalk and move forward. Who cares if he gets hit; he’s absorbing everything Floyd throws at him and he’s going to throw everything back, maybe even the kitchen sink if nobody’s looking. But that’s what they said about Carlos Baldomir, too. Remember him? He was also Argentinian like Maidana. He had the exact same style as Maidana. And he got his ass handed to him by Floyd, which is to say that Maidana will likely suffer a similar fate.
It should be as automatic a win for Floyd as any of his recent fights. Hell, he’s 1/11 odds to win, which means you’re going to have to pay $100 to win the equivalent of a Big Mac meal at McDonalds. Thanks, but no thanks.
Maidana’s a good fighter; he’s just not in Floyd’s class. Maybe after three swigs of tequila, I can be convinced to put a small piece on a Maidana win. Five swigs and I’ll probably take Maidana to win by knockout. That promises a hefty 14/1 payday. But short of getting completely inebriated and possibly mistaking Maidana as the second coming of Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, there’s no reasonable explanation to put a large chunk of money on the Argentinian.
But if you are interested in betting on the fight, method of victory seems to be the safest bet. A Floyd decision victory has been priced at 4/6 while a Floyd knockout win is at 2/1. The latter looks like an appealing bet, even if Floyd hasn’t knocked anybody out since stopping Ricky Hatton in 2008. Sorry, I’m not counting the Victor Ortiz KO because Ortiz was too busy trying to make out with Floyd to see a right hand coming straight to his mug. A smart bet, seems to point to a decision win by Floyd. It’s not going to make anybody a lot of money, but at 4/6, it’s a lot better than 1/11. You could get a little cute and try to predict the the round where a stoppage occurs, but even that is a long shot at best.
This fight will hopefully be entertaining, even with the predictable outcome. Maidana could land a couple of shots here and there, and that should make watching it a little more bearable. But if you’re looking for a Maidana upset, just be warned that Floyd has a better chance of having Arum shine his boots than Maidana has of putting a ‘1’ on the loss column of his record.
