[vortrex]

To even bring "boxing corruption" into this fight is just plain silly.  It was a good fight.  It was a fun fight to watch.  It was a pretty even fight.  What type of fights/fighters you like would be important in the outcome if you were judging this.  Maidana was going all out swinging haymakers windmill style for the entire fight.  He was coming forward a lot.  It was difficult at time to see his shots landing cleaning.  Floyd was landing crisp accurate shots.  I think at one point Foyd was landing 50+% of his power shots.  Different judges like different things.  This is nothing new.  We all know draws in boxing are rare.  Someone had to win this fight and as much as I hate to say it, I would have probably picked Floyd too.

You said biggest in boxing history, so I assumed you meant boxing history and not just those who are active today.

Floyd is not going to lose a decision because he seriously outpoints everyone.  That's just the way it is.  When there is a close fight we will see.  I'm sorry, but the last fight was not any sort of scandal, as much as you guys who didn't even watch the fight want it to be.

As for the gloves, the model of glove was approved.  Then, Maidana had a custom pair of this model made that apparently was not exactly the same as the "off the shelf" model of this glove, with padding moved off the knuckles.  He ended up wearing the model of gloves that were approved, just not his custom ones.  This is such a non-issue.  Floyd bashers are really grasping with this controversy.

[S Clark]

You guys are sure passionate about your boxing.  I've really not followed it much since the first Leonard/Durant fight.  But I'll tell a little tale to lighten the mood.  My dad did a bit of boxing back in the depression to make a few bucks on the weekends.  He fought in the city parks in Dallas and trained with a guy named Didrikson- who brought his sister to spar one night... yep, my dad, at 17 years old,  boxed arguably the greatest woman athlete of all time, the great Babe Didrikson in 1939.  She was faster than he was, in her prime at 28, multi Olympic gold medals,  and "could hit like a man".  He finally connected and put her on the canvas and they called it- after all, it was just sparring.  He boxed a bit in the military, but Uncle Sam didn't give them much time for such nonsense.  I used to love to hear my old man tell that story.. My brother and I both have very long arms and fast hands.  My sport was fencing.

[Letitroll98]

I think vortrex has some good points.  Mayweather does outpoint opponents, I can't dispute his report about the glove controversy, seems a reasonable explanation, and the reports had Maidana swinging wildly.  And I support his opinion if he thinks Mayweather won the fight fair and square, he previously said it was a draw, but I understand he says if forced to a decision it would be FM.

However, even though we all know judges score differently, they are all under the same three guidelines which are:  1) Clean Punching  2) Effective Aggressiveness; and 3) Ring Generalship.  Sometimes Effective Defense is included as it's own category, but defense usually falls under Ring Generalship.  These mean specific things and with a well judged fight we should see relative agreement between the judges.

Which leads to the scenario whereby we are not so naive to think big money fights aren't fixed.  vortrex has the fight close with a nod to Mayweather, very reasonable.  Michael Pernick had the fight 114-114, again very reasonable.  So how does Dave Moretti score it 116-112?  And the really suspicious score from Burt A. Clements, 117-111.  Someone is either incompetent or is being paid off.  Either way, it's a sad state of affairs.  I don't think Mr. Clements is incompetent, besides this fight, he was also a judge for Garcia/Khan, Vasquez/Reyes, Alvarez/Lopez and five other title fights this year alone, with a total of 23 fights so far in 2014.  Something stinks in Denmark.

So what do we need to make this happen?  One judge and a lot of money.  The money is already there of course.  You're likely to have one judge already champ friendly, i.e. the challenger has to win the round from the champ, and then you need only one judge you have to bribe (and who is willing to accept the bribe).  It's easy to get a fight fixed, how much do you think those judges are paid?  Or we have a clean fight judged by morons who see 3 out of 12 rounds, 25% of the fight, completely opposite from each other.  We can certainly all have valid, yet differing opinions on the above scenario.  I have mine.       

[Rob Babcock]

Someone will probably have to knock Floyd out to win.  And he picks his opponents too carefully for that to happen.

[dB Cooper]

I think vortrex has some good points.  Mayweather does outpoint opponents, I can't dispute his report about the glove controversy, seems a reasonable explanation, and the reports had Maidana swinging wildly.     

Swinging wildly is a mild way of putting it. I can hardly ever remember seeing shots that wide. He must have hit Mayweather on the back of the head about 14 times in the first round alone. If he can learn to throw sorter shots and concentrate more on the body he would have a better chance. Contrary to what Maidana's fans apparently thought, wild misses don't count.

[vortrex]

OK, I looked at the official stats.  Floyd landed an incredible 65% of his power shots.  They both landed similar amounts of punches and Floyd threw 100's less.  Clean punching is Floyd without a doubt.  Effective aggressiveness would be Maidana.  Ring generalship is a toss up.  As I said, I was not scoring round by round.  I called it a draw only because nobody was hurt, both had their moments.  If I was going by the official way to score a fight Floyd could very well have won by a couple/few rounds.  I think the Showtime crew all had Floyd ahead by a couple points.  There is absolutely no scoring controversy in this fight.  The real problem is the way boxing is scored today.  Even rounds are not scored often enough.  I would have had many of their rounds even.

Punch stats:

Floyd 230 out of 426
Maidana 221 out of 858

[TF1216]

You guys are sure passionate about your boxing.  I've really not followed it much since the first Leonard/Durant fight.  But I'll tell a little tale to lighten the mood.  My dad did a bit of boxing back in the depression to make a few bucks on the weekends.  He fought in the city parks in Dallas and trained with a guy named Didrikson- who brought his sister to spar one night... yep, my dad, at 17 years old,  boxed arguably the greatest woman athlete of all time, the great Babe Didrikson in 1939.  She was faster than he was, in her prime at 28, multi Olympic gold medals,  and "could hit like a man".  He finally connected and put her on the canvas and they called it- after all, it was just sparring.  He boxed a bit in the military, but Uncle Sam didn't give them much time for such nonsense.  I used to love to hear my old man tell that story.. My brother and I both have very long arms and fast hands.  My sport was fencing.

Not that is a story for the ages.  Thank you for sharing S Clark 

[dB Cooper]

In related news, looks like we are in for Pacquiao- Marquez V after Marquez' domination of the hard hitting but very one dimensional Mike Alvarado last night. Marquez wants the big payday. Pacquiao wants redemption after the only definitive outcome of the series.

I'm not sure who else wants it besides the sanctioning bodies, at least one of which will make Marquez the mandatory for the title Manny just reclaimed from Bradley.

Oh joy.

[Kenneth Patchen]

Did y'all see this?
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11225109

'Manny' sings! ("I think were gonna start with the song from Frozen, no?")

And his reply to the question "Are you afraid of Mayweather" has had me laughing all day.