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Las Vegas - Floyd Mayweather says he will not allow Marcos Maidana to choose the gloves for their fight in September.
"He wanted a rematch and I gave it to him," Mayweather said in Los Angeles on Thursday. "He says he won the first fight, so do it again with the same gloves."
The bout will be Mayweather's fourth of a six-fight contract with New York-based Showtime Networks Inc. If he wins all three of the remaining fights it would leave him with 49 wins, one shy of going 50-0.
"If the price is right and I want to go for number 50, then it is possible," he said. "One of my ultimate goals is to fight in New York."
The undefeated American will face Argentina's Maidana in Las Vegas on September 13, with Mayweather's WBA and WBC welterweight titles on the line.
A disagreement arose on the eve of their fight on May 3 when Mayweather objected to the 227-gram gloves that Maidana wanted to use, saying they didn't have enough padding.
"This is not a street fight; this is not an MMA fight," Mayweather said. "My health and my career after boxing is what's important. I could hit this guy without gloves and he could never walk again. We use gloves to protect ourselves."
The man nicknamed "Money" won their first bout on a majority decision, one of the judges scoring it 114-114.
Mayweather, who has a record of 46-0, with 26 knockouts, was criticised for not doing enough early on as Maidana swarmed him and won several rounds.
The champion and Maidana, whose record stands at 35-4, with 31 knockouts, met at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday as part of a cross-country promotion tour.
This time there was no talk of retirement as Mayweather did before the first bout. After that clash, Maidana's trainer, Robert Garcia, got Mayweather to agree to a rematch and a handshake on the podium to seal the deal.
Mayweather said on Thursday he had not given Maidana this rematch because he wanted to honour that commitment. He went for it because he saw the first half of that fight as a blight on his career that he wanted to wash away with a dominating victory.
"This guy won three or four rounds against me and that never happens," he said.
Maidana said he wanted the referee to penalise Mayweather for using his elbows. "He is a bit of a dirty fighter. He likes to use his elbows; get them in your throat. For some reason the referees let him get away with it," Maidana said.
Mayweather defended his counterpunching style, saying it had enabled him to outlast many of the fighters that turned profwessional at the same time as he did, back in 1996.
"I am almost 20 years in [the game] and I am still sharp and still going strong," he said. "I think all those other fighters should have been more defensive fighters."
Mayweather said like all great athletes he had doubts before a big fight. "I wake up at 3am and run eight miles. There are voices going through my head telling me 'He can beat you and you don't deserve to be there,'" he said.
"But then there is another voice in my head where my mother's
telling me, 'You are special. You are where you're at for a reason.'
Those are the things no one understands. So I want to continue to push
myself to the limit."
