By Eric Thomas: #14 WBC, Josesito Lopez (30-5, 18 KO’s) received a ton of credit for beating former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz last June by a 9th round stoppage. However, Lopez was unable to build on the momentum from that victory as he was beaten with ease by WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by a 5th round TKO last September in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Josesito will now be facing #2 WBA, Marcos Maidana (33-3, 30 KO’s) on June 8th at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, USA. The bout was previously scheduled for April 20th, but Golden Boy Promotions moved it from that date after scheduling the title unification bout between Canelo and WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout for that date.
Josesito, 28, needs a win against Maidana to stay ranked in the top 15 in the welterweight division. Josesito has lost two out of his last three fights, and if he loses to Maidana then that’ll make it three out of the last four fights and then we’re talking about Josesito heading towards journeyman level status at that point.
Maidana will be defending his WBA Inter-Continental welterweight title for this fight. The strap isn’t important; what’s important is that Maidana wins this fight and stays in the running for a big money bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr., the WBC welterweight champion, who reportedly has Maidana as one of the six names on his list for his six-fight contract with Showtime/CBS. Josesito can really mess up Maidana’s chances of getting that fight by staying in there and pulling off an upset like the one he did in beating Ortiz.
For Josesito win, he’s going to need to show a better chin than he did in losing to Canelo. Josesito seemed to crumble to pieces in that fight from the big time power of Canelo. Maidana doesn’t have the same kind of weight behind his shots that Canelo has, but he’s definitely a big puncher and capable of taking Josesito out if he attempts to go toe-to-toe with him on June 8th.
Josesito needs to work on using movement in his game because he’s using the wrong kind of approach to winning his fights since he moved up in weight from the light welterweight division. Josesito probably got lucky with Ortiz that he suffered in injury to his jaw because Ortiz might have gotten to Lopez in the remaining rounds to score a knockout.
Even if he didn’t KO Lopez, Ortiz would have likely beat him by a decision had he not suffered the injury. Lopez can’t continue to fight like that because it’s not a style that’ll work well for him because he doesn’t have the kind of power to get away with it, especially against a big puncher like Maidana.
Comments are closed.