Floyd Mayweather denies showing signs of decline in Las Vegas win

Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana, right, exchange punches in Las Vegas. Mayweather won a majority points verdict. Photograph: John Gurzinski/AFP/Getty

Glimpses of the real Floyd Mayweather are rare, so carefully does he massage his image and so dutifully do those around him comply with each swing of his mood. As Amir Khan said beforehand: "When you're talking with Floyd Mayweather, he's the boss. You have to listen to him."

That is true. Yet, in the course of his 46th victory, a bruising majority points verdict over Marcos Maidana at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night that he later rated nearly as tough as his win over Miguel Cotto in 2012, Mayweather's command of his landscape began to shrink.

Even as he pawed at his wounds two hours later and drank in the applause of his acolytes at another chaotic press conference – he had only to chant "Hard work!" than the room filled with the call-and-response he demands, "Dedication!" – minor suspicions surfaced that we might have seen the best of Mayweather. He is still unbeaten. But he is no longer is unbeatable.

Mayweather remains the best boxer in the business, ahead of the legally entangled Andre Ward and the seemingly untouchable heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko, but, at 37, his task of reaching Rocky Marciano's career record of 49-0 looks onerous rather than a given. He needs three wins to deliver on his six-fight deal with Showtime. None of them is likely to be as easy as most of the 46 he has already compiled.

Klitschko and Mayweather started their careers within a month of each other 18 years ago, and, while the Ukrainian's boast that he might box until he is 50 is fanciful, Mayweather's prospects of drawing alongside Marciano in boxing history also need closer examination.

For a man who regards himself so highly to be continually trapped and hurt by a willing but predictable assailant – the same fighter that Khan dropped then outpointed four years ago – is so palpably evidence of the first signs of decline that for Mayweather to pretend otherwise is slightly worrying.

Certainly after he had weathered the early storm on Saturday, he found much of his old genius for eluding punishment while punishing his opponent for impertinence. There were even extended passages of such brilliance and much to applaud as he finally took a grip on the contest. But the man in front of him was as easy to read as a bus ticket. As Maidana wound up his right arm it was liking watch a young cricketer learning to bowl, head down and hurling for all he was worth.Yet he found "all the right areas" way too often.

Mayweather, naturally, did not agree. He complained with justification that many of Maidana's blows were illegal, crashing down on the back of his head or so far south of the border as to require a visa for Mexico. He said, to the astonishment of any sane witness: "I could have made this a lot easier for myself, but I wanted to give the fans a show."

If the audience were sadists (and some of them are), he fulfilled their every wish. But it surely was stretching the point for Mayweather to claim that he willingly exposed himself to the dangers of defeat for their benefit.

The truth was he was a step slower than in his last fight, a magnificent performance against the Mexican Saúl Álvarez in September which ranks among his most convincing victories at elite level. This time, there were punches Maidana might have launched back in Argentina yet somehow travelled to their destination unimpeded.

Mayweather, who has wrestled with the recent break-up of his relationship as well as witnessing the turmoil that is raging inside the camp of his co-promoters, Golden Boy Promotions, said before this fight he had already contemplated leaving the business. He has retired before. He must one day do it again, although it is highly unlikely he will walk away now.

"Boxing is all I have ever done," he said on Saturday night. As for next time, he said: "I don't know what I'm going to do for my next fight yet. But I always find a way to win."

And that remains the truth.