By Dan Ambrose: Sometimes when a fighter moves up in weight they find themselves in situation where their power doesn’t carry and they’re physically overwhelmed by the stronger fighters at this weight. This is going to be Josesito Lopez’s situation tonight against Marcos Maidana (33-3, 30 KO’s) in their fight at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Lopez isn’t strong enough to be fighting at 147, which is why I’m not surprised that he chose to stay at 140 for so long despite being huge for the weight class. Lopez’s just not a big puncher.
He lucked out against Victor Ortiz last year because he was trailing on all three cards at the time that Ortiz quit on his stool after the 9th due to a broken jaw. Lopez was losing by the scores 86-85, 87-84 and 88-83. Lopez absolutely needed Ortiz to quit because he was going to lose that fight. It’s this fight that made Lopez and it’s not much of a win to be honest. It was more like a gift than an actual win for Lopez.
We saw how badly Lopez was beaten in his last fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last September in Lopez losing by a 5th round TKO. While Maidana probably isn’t going to rehydrate up to near 170 like Canelo, he’s still going to run over Lopez in the same manner that Canelo did. He may need to chase Lopez down before he stops him, but he’s going to stop him.
The ring is only so big and Lopez can’t run for 12 rounds without Maidana catching him to him to knock him out. The only real option Lopez has in this fight is if he chooses to use the Devon Alexander approach to beating Maidana by clinching all night long.
I don’t see the referee working the fight tonight allowing Lopez to cling all over Maidana the way that Alexander did. The referee will pull Lopez off of Maidana and take points away if he tries to hang off of him for 12 rounds to sneak a victory instead of earning one.
I see Maidana giving Lopez a terrible beating tonight and cutting him up, and bloodying his nose bad.
Prediction: Maidana by 6th round TKO.
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