Maidana: Josesito shouldn’t have fought Canelo

By Boxing News - 06/05/2013 - Comments

canelo 07By Dan Ambrose: Welterweight contender Marcos Maidana (33-3, 30 KO’s) seems to feel a little sorry for his opponent Josesito Lopez (30-5, 18 KO’s) for this Saturday night in their battle at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Lopez was recently the sacrificial lamb for WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to bludgeon last September in a 5th round TKO loss for Lopez. At the time, Lopez had been fighting pretty much his entire career at 140 when he asked if he wanted to come up in weight two divisions to face the much heavier Canelo.

The money was good so Josesito said yes to the fight, but he was badly out-sized by the much stockier and stronger Canelo and he ended up getting knocked down three times en route to getting stopped in the 5th. Why Lopez was pooled from the light welterweight division to fight a guy that is big enough to fight at super middleweight is anyone’s guess.

Maidana said this about it: “He [Josesito] went up to fight Canelo. He had no business in that division, so I think that at 147 it’s more his weight class and it’s going to be a tough fight.”

Josesito looked like a flabby light welterweight when he fought Canelo on that night and it’s really not surprising that he got drilled out of there in a quick fashion.

Maidana still sees Josesito as being a tough opponent for him this Saturday night and he’s expecting to roll over him on size alone like Canelo did because Maidana doesn’t rehydrate to 170 for his fights. He’s still basically a pumped up light welterweight fighting at welterweight.

The division is still new to him and he doesn’t balloon up in weight after he makes the 147 lb. limit, so the fight is going to be a pretty fair one with both guys being near the same weight.

Lopez and his trainer have been pretty clear about what they intend on doing in this fight and that’s to try and box Maidana instead of getting in there and going toe-to-toe with him. They know he’s slow and can be out-boxed because Devon Alexander, Amir Khan and Erik Morales did a good job against him.



Comments are closed.