Floyd Mayweather Jr. has disparaged Marcos "El Chino" Maidana for several weeks leading up to their Saturday clash, focusing on Maidana's questionable tactics during their first fight.
While Mayweather's still tossing accusations of foul play Maidana's way, he's now comparing him unfavorably to Canelo Alvarez, whom Mayweather also defeated by majority decision. In the Alvarez fight, however, the one judge who scored it a draw was roundly criticized because Mayweather had obviously dominated the action.
"If you look at the interviews I said he came out kind of wild, and I took my time and kept my composure," Mayweather said. "I can make adjustments and I can adapt to any style, whether it's the first round, the second round.
"Just because I beat Canelo 11 that rounds doesn't mean he's not a better fighter than Maidana. Canelo's by far stronger, and tried to pull a couple dirty tactics, but like I said before, that comes with the territory."
Maidana has recently made comments about adjusting his style for this matchup, despite giving Mayweather what many believe was his toughest challenge in years.
"I thought at times that I was too aggressive in the first fight and I was able to let Mayweather move around a little bit too much," Maidana said. "I will be much more careful in the ring for the rematch. I won't load up so much, but instead fight fresher and with more distance."
That could be a smokescreen, however, because in a New York media press conference to promote the Mayhem pay-per-view Maidana praised the first fight plan and suggested only tweaks needed to be made to be successful.
"I think the plan of attack was great and I've just got to add to it. I think that I did really good work in the gym with the sparring partners that we used and its just a matter of adding on."
Should the former comments hold true, and Maidana enter the ring with more of a boxer mentality than brawler, Mayweather's comments about his fighting ability compared to Alvarez's will be put to the test.
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