Maidana looks less like the lean, mean, fighting machine of old than Robert De Niro in the final scene from ?Raging Bull? ?
You can?t miss him, especially at a picnic or barbecue with his shirt off. But if you go looking for him in a boxing gym, he may be hard to find.
Former WBA World super lightweight and welterweight champion Marcos ?El Chino? Maidana (35-5, 31KOs), the hard-hitting gaucho from Jose Leon Suarez, Buenos Aires, Argentina, has not fought in a year and a half. He may be suffering a letdown after losing to Floyd Mayweather in his last two fights. But he hasn?t formally retired.
His body, however, by all appearances, may have already thrown in the towel.
Looking less like the lean, mean, fighting machine of old than Robert De Niro in the final scene from ?Raging Bull,? the above photo has been making the rounds with all manner of gasp, cluck, tsk and head-shaking.
Maidana has spoken about returning to active duty once he decides to stop eating, but he wants to make sure it?s worth his while. He wants Mayweather money or no money at all, which is not happening. Not only has Mayweather retired, and the big money he generates has retired with him, but Maidana, without pulling any punches, looks like hell.
If Maidana returns, an ?if? as big as his waistline at the moment, he?ll presumably return to welterweight. But getting down to 147 won?t be easy.
During an interview with BoxingScene.com, Maidana?s trainer, Robert Garcia, said it will take several months to work off all that excess flab in a ?safe? manner.
For a trainer and gym with a history of fighters failing to make weight, maybe Maidana and Garcia are not, in this instance, the perfect fit.
But I?m not sure how much Jenny Craig knows about defense, let alone throwing a punch.
