By Eric Thomas: Marcos Maidana (31-2, 28 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to face Devon Alexander (22-1, 13 KO’s) next month in a fight at welterweight in the Scottrade Center in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Maidana is perfectly suited for fighting at 140lb, where his power gives him an advantage over the weaker fighters in the weight class. But when you put him at 147lbs, Maidana has few advantages and is more of just another fighter. He doesn’t have the hand speed that Alexander has going for him and will be facing a hostile pro-Alexander crowd.

Maidana will be Amir Khan fighting Lamont Peterson in Washington, DC. If Maidana can score a knockout to take the judges and the crowd out of the fight, then he should be okay here, but if he fails to do that then it’s going to be a long disappointing night for Maidana.

But he doesn’t have a lot of choices because he doesn’t attract huge numbers in his home country of Argentina and a between Maidana and Alexander probably wouldn’t draw flies if it were made in a neutral venue like Las Vegas, Nevada. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s going to have to probably knock Alexander out in order to win the fight.

Maidana won’t lose his WBA title if he gets beaten by Alexander because the fight is being held at 147lbs, so that’s a definite positive for him. But it won’t look good seeing Maidana get beaten again. He was already beaten by Andriy Kotelnik and Khan.

He fought well enough to win both fights but didn’t start early enough with his pressure for him to get the early rounds. Both fighters dominated Maidana in the first half of the fight and then saw him creep back into it with his power shots in the second half. Alexander fades badly in the second half of his fights and that could give Maidana a real chance of wearing him down and getting a stoppage here if his stamina holds up for the full 12.