Floyd Mayweather objects to gloves of Marcos Maidana

Floyd Mayweather objects to gloves of Marcos Maidana

Michael Woods of The Sweet Science has reported there is a bit of a controversy regarding the gloves that Marcos Maidana wanted to use for tomorrow night’s fight against Floyd Mayweather.

Maidana wanted to use Everlast MX gloves, but Mayweather’s team objected to them due to the distribution of padding in the gloves.

MX gloves are considered punchers gloves and Mayweather’s team felt the knuckles aren’t properly padded in the gloves. There was also concern that the gloves weren’t in the type of packaging the way gloves are expected to be, particularly for a fight of this magnitude.

UPDATE: The Nevada State Athletic Commission confirmed that the MX gloves are approved and that this is an issue the two camps need to work out.

UPDATE (2): Richard Schaefer spoke to assembled media in the media center around 7:40 PM PT:

“I was called in when the shit almost hit the fan to come save the day. By that time, the blue colored gloves, everybody had touched them already so it isn’t very fair to say that these were not conformed. By the time I saw them, I have to admit, it was very thin padding, but if you keep touching them and stretching them and stuff like that, I didn’t really see it from the beginning.”

“Both fighters, when you have usually in these big fights, it says both fighters can select the brand and the color of the gloves but both agree to eight ounce and if it is above 147 pounds, then ten ounce, but that is it. It doesn’t stipulate what type of gloves. Probably going forward, that has to be done. These days, you see these fancy gloves and custom made gloves and so on being used by fighters and I think the commission is probably gonna be implementing some new rules where if somebody wants to use customized gloves that they’re gonna have to be presented to the commission way before the weigh-in so that the opposing camps can take a look at it so we can avoid these kinds of disputes.”

“They’re basically working on what the right way is to go about it. I’m not worried. There were a bunch of gloves there. There were foam gloves, horsehair gloves, different gloves, all sorts of stuff lying around by the time I was there. Now, the commission basically said you guys go and figure it out.”

“I am told it is gonna be no problem. There’s gonna be a fight, and they’re both gonna wear gloves, and you’re gonna be happy. It will be a brand which is acceptable to the commission and that’s what it is gonna be.”

Schaefer also denied that Maidana stormed out of the room.

“They were different MX gloves. They were different gloves. When you start ordering gloves and making your own gloves, it’s not like a standard glove anymore. You have different color, everything is different. I can understand that fighters oppose to that, so I think as a result of this we are going to see more stringent rules as it relates to non-standard gloves.”

Schaefer said the problem wasn’t with the brand of Everlast MX, but said it was a variation of that glove type.

Videos of the controversy can be seen on Fighthype.com.

-Mark E. Ortega / @MarkEOrtega

-Managing editor at www.BehindTheGloves.com