by David P. Greisman

HBO’s longtime unofficial ringside judge Harold Lederman caught up with BoxingScene.com on June 6, talking about what he thought about Floyd Mayweather’s May win over Marcos Maidana.

BoxingScene.com: What did you think of the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Marcos Maidana?

Lederman: “Oh my god, I thought that it was a terrific fight. David, I tell you something, watching it on TV, you know the way I’ve said many times, if you listen to me, that sometimes a fight is hard to score off the TV, and I thought that was the case in the Maidana fight. We knew what Maidana was doing, when he would get Floyd Mayweather up on the ropes and hurt him with those right hands over the top, certainly those were rounds that he won.

“On the other hand, it was hard to judge what Floyd was doing, because you lose the velocity of the punch watching it on TV. There’s no way you could tell how hard Floyd was hitting him. And the people that were on the apron at ringside said that Floyd won most of the rounds because of the fact that he hit him harder, you know, landed the harder, cleaner punches.

“But you couldn’t see it watching it off the TV. Nobody could tell me that they really could judge the velocity of Floyd Mayweather’s punch in the Maidana fight. It was virtually impossible. People will say that he was landing short shots, hard shots, but to be honest with you, to judge the velocity was very, very tough off the TV. I thought that Floyd won. I thought that it was a little bit closer than the 117-111 one of the judges had it. Michael Pernick had it a draw. He probably was closest to the truth as I saw it.

“I thought Floyd won, but I thought Maidana won a number of those rounds from pinning Mayweather up on the ropes and rocking him with that right hand over the top. Especially in rounds 1 to 5, Maidana might’ve lost the second round, but the rest of those rounds, it certainly looked like Maidana was doing very well. And I thought he did pretty well in those last two rounds, also.”

BoxingScene.com: Were you surprised at the way the fight went?

Lederman: “Nope. Maidana’s got that style. We saw the way he beat up Adrien Broner, a real good fighter, with that same style. He just keeps coming forward, never stops, got a good jaw. He doesn’t get marked up. He doesn’t get cut up. He’s an amazing guy. He really is. Boy, you talk about the Argentine fighter. If he’s not prototypical of the Argentine fighter, who is?”

BoxingScene.com: I know the talk beforehand was that Broner is not Mayweather, though. Do you see any signs of Mayweather aging?

Lederman: “No. No. I think Floyd’s as good as he ever was. Floyd’s terrific. His conditioning is magnificent. The hand speed is still there. He can box. He gets smarter with each and every fight. He learns, the way that fighters do in each and every fight. He’s still got the shoulder roll. Not easy to hit. Floyd’s a tough out for anybody.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com