By Jason Kim: Red hot light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz (24-1-1, 19 KOs) will be taking perhaps the toughest fight of his young career on June 27th in taking on the powerful Argentinean Marcos Maidana (25-1, 24 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout for the interim WBA light welterweight title at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California.
Both fighters have huge power and are probably the hardest punchers in the light welterweight division bar none. The winner of this fight will be facing the June 27th victor between World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik vs. Amir Khan, which takes place at the O2 Arena, in Greenwich, London.
Maidana, 25, has already been beaten by Kotelnik in a controversial 12 round split decision in February. In that fight, it appeared that Maidana had done enough to get the decision as he landed the much harder shots and took the fight to the tired Kotelnik in the last four rounds of the fight in rounds eight through twelve.
However, as often is the case for fighters traveling to Germany to fight the hometown champion, Maidana was on the receiving end of a disappointing decision. But believe me, Maidana looked to have won the fight by at least two rounds.
At worst, you call it a draw if you were looking at only the punches that Kotelnik was throwing in the fight and entirely ignoring the monstrous shots that Maidana was pounding Kotelnik with. If you looked at both of their faces after the fight, you could come to no other conclusion but to see Maidana as the winner in the fight, because his face was completely unmarked and he looked to be fresh as if he were about to start the fight.
In contrast, Kotelnik looked beaten up, his face swollen and red. This is probably the fight that Khan saw that made him want to fight Kotelnik so badly. Maidana was putting a big hurting on Kotelnik in that fight, there’s little doubt about that.
Ortiz, 22, is a Golden Boy fighter and has the backing of the huge promotional company, which has been adding him to many of the recent undercards of popular fights in the past year. However, Golden Boy has been wrong about a fighter in the past and they may be wrong in this case about whether Ortiz has the stuff needed to be a champion.
Ortiz has already been beaten once and held to a draw in another fight against Marvin Cordova. Ortiz looked very average against Emmanuel Clottey, the brother of welterweight champion Joshua Clottey. And against Dairo Esalas, Ortiz was dropped and badly hurt in the fight by the journeyman fighter.
Against Maidana, Ortiz is going to have to be much more careful because Maidana will knock him out if he can land one of his big shots. Ortiz likes to stand in front of his opponents and trade big shots. That’s the wrong kind of style to use against a fighter like Maidana, who is quite good when he has a stationary target for him to aim his big shots at.
Also on the card will be a rematch between WBA featherweight champion Chris John and challenger Rocky Juarez, both of whom fought to a controversial 12-round draw in February. John, fighting in Juarez’s hometown, looked to have won the fight.