Marcos Maidana reportedly won’t return to boxing after all

In February, it was reported that Marcos Maidana was going to end a long retirement and return to the ring, signing a deal with Premier Boxing Champions to get back in the ring this summer after watching January fights with Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman, and thinking that he could beat those guys if he came back.

But Mike Coppinger is now reporting that Maidana has changed his mind, calling off his comeback bid after he “simply lost hunger” for it. Coppinger says that Maidana’s deal would have paid him $1.5 million for a middleweight fight this summer, with the intent to work back down to welterweight in time.

All in all, I’m glad Maidana, who turns 36 in July, decided to call things off if he wasn’t feeling it in the gym, instead of pushing things into an actual fight just for a handsome payday. The Argentine slugger hasn’t fought since his pair of competitive losses to Floyd Mayweather in 2014, and over the years has stayed around the sport, and was often seen looking happy, clearly well over his old fighting weight. Coming back to training for boxing after that long off has to be brutal.

Maidana seems to have gotten the bug, and now it’s gone. He can still say he gave the best boxer of his generation two of his toughest fights.