By Jason Kim: Erik Morales was left without an opponent for his September 17th fight for the vacant WBC light welterweight crown on September 17th after Lucas Matthysse pulled out of the fight today citing a lingering illness.

Morales reportedly asked his promoter Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions to set him up with a rematch against Argentinian slugger Marcos Maidana, who Morales lost to by a 12 round decision last April. However, Maidana’s people declined according to Dan Rafael, preferring instead for Maidana to fight little known Petr Petrov on September 23.

It’s too bad, because Maidana-Morales would have been a much more interesting fight than Maidana taking on some unknown Russian fighter by the name of Petrov. It could be that Maidana and/or his management were concerned that he might not be ready for Morales’ style at such short notice. However, Morales always fights the same way and Maidana should have learned enough from beating Morales last time out to be able to cope with whatever he brings to the table in a rematch.

With Maidana not interested, Morales and Golden Boy are still looking for replacement for Morales. As of now there’s no talk of Morales being dropped from the September 17th fight pay per view card. The card is headed by Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz, but once you get past that fight it’s a pretty mediocre card. It needed Morales on their to bring in more numbers for this PPV fight. Maidana vs. Morales would have been a much bigger fight than Morales vs. Matthysse.