• Floyd Mayweather v Marcos Maidana

'Glove-gate' leaves Mayweather fuming at Maidana

Floyd Mayweather was furious at Marcos Maidana's gloves © Getty Images

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Floyd Mayweather's unification title fight with Marcos Maidana was thrown into serious doubt after a heated dispute over the Argentinian's gloves dominated Friday's weigh-in.

CEO of Mayweather Promotions Leonard Ellerbe threatened to cancel the fight, which takes place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday, after he became involved in a heated exchange with Robert Garcia, Maidana's trainer, and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer.

Mayweather was left fuming at what he considered to be a lack of padding on WBA champion Maidana's gloves; both fighters are required to approve each other's pair after the weigh-in.

However, proceedings reached boiling point before Ellerbe declared: "We're not fighting in those [Maidana's] gloves. The gloves have no padding in them."

Equally as furious, Mayweather added: "All I want to do is good business. If a motherf***** can beat me he has to do it the hard way. A motherf***** doesn't have to be cutting no corners trying to cheat because I ain't never tried to cheat to beat nobody.

"As the CEO of my company and one of my close friends, if there's something that's not right, he [Ellerbe] is doing his job to address it. I believe everybody should be treated fair. One thing we're not going to do is pull no slick bulls*** on them.

"I can tell you right now, f*** no. I can feel my damn knuckle. There ain't no f****** padding, you can tell, this motherf***** is already broken in."

Schaefer was quick to diffuse the situation and insisted the fight, in which WBC welterweight champion Mayweather could match Joe Calzaghe's stretch of 46 professional fights without loss, will go ahead as planned.

"There were some custom-made gloves for Maidana, the Everlast with the horsehair filling," Schaefer said. "There are two types of gloves - the ones with the foam padding and ones with the horsehair. The third type is a combination between the two.

"What we're talking about here are the ones that were blue in Argentinian colours. Those were ruled by the Nevada State Athletic Commission as not conforming. They were not allowed.

"Everything will be OK, it's just a matter of the teams working out which gloves they will use. They're still talking about it but everything will be worked out. "I'm told they're going to fight, they're both going to wear gloves and everyone is going to be happy."

Mayweather is set to earn a guaranteed £19 million purse for the fight, which sees Amir Khan battle it out with Luis Collazo on the undercard.

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