'On this day' posts annoy the hell out of me - I like the concept, originally popularized by Frank 'the tank' Fleming of the Sports E-Cyclopedia and Barstool Sports fame, but like anything cool and interesting, they've gone completely over the top and can clog one's timeline based on whatever the hell the algorithm knows you're in to. The frequency and lack of novelty are tough - and most aren't even from that long ago. 'On this day 3 years ago, the Patriots select Mac Jones...' - 'On this day in 2016, the Boston Celtics won a regular season basketball game against the Warriors'. Perhaps I dislike them because I sneaky love watching old highlights like this one and the social media algorithms know this about me:
I feel like the rules need to be that it's gotta be at least a once every 5 year occurrence for a given event, and it has to be on a multiple of 5 or 10 year anniversary, and it can't be 'Johnny played tiddleywinks' as a commemorative event. The rules are hazy... but this one from 10 years ago exactly still goes down as probably the best fight I've ever watched live and it's one that very few people talk about:
May 3, 2014 was scheduled to be another easy pay day for Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas against - but the entertaining, wild punching Argentinian brawler Marcos Maidana had other plans. Maidana had made a career of upsetting the apple card, doing so a few years prior against the likes of Victor Ortiz with a KO victory, knocking down Amir Khan twice in their bout at his peak, and dismantling Adrien Broner at the end of 2013 to earn himself the right to this once in a lifetime opportunity against Mayweather.
From the jump, Maidana was giving Floyd trouble with his awkward punching style and relentless attack - if you try to box with Floyd, you're done, and Robert Garcia (Maidana's trainer) knew that. He was active, throwing 100 punches in the first round, and hitting Floyd with clubbing right hands and making it an ugly brawl against the ropes. This was the first and only time seeing Floyd let someone dictate the pace to him in a given fight, and as the round passed, the tension began to mount.
I recall scoring each round in favor of Maidana... and thinking this could actually happen! I was a big Mayweather fan as well, dude is the best boxer of his generation, but seeing the potential for a wild upset like this was too much for my whimsical brain to pass up. Especially after coming off his destruction of Broner, Marcos was about to do it again!
You be the judge for yourself here - the full fight is up top and I re-watched it recently and scored the same way as back in 2014 - 115-113 Maidana. He won 7 of the first 8 rounds on my card, and though Mayweather finished strong, doesn't change the fact I believe Marcos won that fight. The judges gave it to Floyd by majority decision, with one card in at 117-11, which was crazy (if I recall correctly).
To Floyd's credit, he acknowledged the closeness of this fight, and he gave Maidana the rematch 4 months later in September. This was a rare occurrence in the career of the Grand Rapids, MI prodigy, as he was doing so for only the second time in his career - the other being against Jose Luis Castillo in another controversial decision victory.
Would love to see what Marcos is up to these days... after making probably $50 million in the three fights he had from December 2013-September 2014, he went back to Argentina and partied like nobody has ever partied before - not sure if he ever fought again in a legitimate sense, but the dude earned it. My favorite fighter of all time, way to go Marcos! Most folks will forget this fight, but I will not.
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