By Sean McDaniel: WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (30-2, 27 KO’s) showed in his last fight against Erik Morales and in his fights against Amir Khan and Andriy Kotelnik that he has problems against boxers. Maidana lost to Kotelnik, although boxing fans outside of Germany saw Maidana winning that fight.

Maidana lost a decision to Khan but battered him unceasingly to the point where he was close to getting a stoppage in the 10th. And then in his last fight, Maidana struggled in beating and old flabby around the midsection Morales. Now Maidana will be facing Robert Guerrero (29-1-1, 18 KO’s) for the World Boxing Association title on August 27th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.

Guerrero is a boxer/puncher who can box as well as slug interchangeably. He’s powerful and can fight on the inside or the outside. In many ways, he’s a better fighter than Khan, Kotelnik and Morales. He may not have been as good as a prime Morales, but he’s clearly better than what’s left of Morales now that he’s 34 and fighting four divisions over his best weight class of the super bantamweight division.

Maidana can never match up to the skills that Guerrero possesses and he shouldn’t even try. Maidana isn’t going to outbox Guerrero, and if he gets caught in any kind of boxing match he’s going to lose. Maidana has to take a page from the playbook that Orlando Salido used in beating Guerrero five years ago. That’s not going to be easy, because Salido showed excellent skills in beating Guerrero. However, it’s no mystery what Salido used to beat Guerrero. He mainly pressured Guerrero constantly, throwing double and triple hooks to the body and hard left hooks and right hands to the head. The tall and skinny Guerrero didn’t have the power to compete with Salido.

Maidana has to use his power to go through Guerrero’s skills and make hurt him with right hands to the head. Guerrero doesn’t look comfortable when he’s getting hammered and this is what Maidana needs to do to win. Guerrero has had it easy in the past few years, as he’s normally the stronger fighter. I doubt that he’ll be stronger than Maidana, and he could lose his confidence and starting thinking safety if Maidana puts the hurt on him.