By Jason Kim: There’s no shortage of potential opponents for interim World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (26-1, 25 KO’s) for his next bout on November 28th. As of now, former WBO light welterweight champion Kendall Holt (25-3, 13 KO’s) looks to be the leading candidate to get the much coveted fight against the 26-year-old Maidana.

However, there are other fighters that also want a shot against Maidana, one of them being unbeaten lightweight Anthony Peterson (29-0, 19 KO’s). According to Dan Rafael, Peterson’s management team requested tapes of Maidana to look at him. This would be a very dangerous fight for the 24-year-old Peterson, who has been fighting as a lightweight throughout his five year pro career and isn’t a real big puncher.

What would make it even more dangerous is that Peterson likes to stand and trade shots with his opponents, and is very hittable. Peterson hasn’t had to learn how to not get hit because his opponents have been mostly softer lower level fighters.

Peterson came back recently from a year layoff from boxing due to leg injury that occurred during training. He defeated Luis Antonio Arceo last month, beating him by a 10 round decision and not looking good. Peterson took a lot of punishment from Arceo and lost a number of the early rounds of the fight.

Had Arceo not been a light puncher, he might have been able to put Peterson in trouble because he had no probably landing shots during the fight whenever he let his hands go. Peterson likely be in a lot of trouble against a fighter like Maidana and I couldn’t see this fight going beyond six, at best. However, it would make for a great fight on HBO, because Peterson would be there to be hit, unlike Holt.

Undefeated World Boxing Council light welterweight champion Devon Alexander (19-0, 12 KO’s) is yet another option for Maidana. Alexander’s manager and trainer Kevin Cunningham is interested in matching the 22-year-old Alexander against Maidana, and have no problems with giving him a shot at Alexander’s WBC title.

Alexander recently stopped Junior Witter in the 8th round last month on August 1st. Alexander looked very impressive in that fight, showing some good power and hurting Witter several times in the fight. Ultimately, Witter quit on his stool following the 8th round.

This is a fighter a lot like Peterson in that Alexander likes to stand in front of his opponents and fire off shots on the inside. Alexander has good skills on the inside, but he’s not as big a puncher as his record would indicate. This would be a fight where Maidana would be able to have a stationary target to land his huge shots off all night long.

Alexander doesn’t jab on the outside like Andriy Kotelnik, a fighter who narrowly defeated Maidana by a questionable 12 round split decision in February. Alexander is tougher than Peterson because he’s really good on the inside and has good hand speed defensive skills.

Cunningham would likely have Alexander moving a lot in a fight against Maidana to avoid getting nailed. Lastly, there’s Nate Campbell (33-5-1, 25 KO’s), who didn’t look at all good in his last fight against Timothy Bradley in August. The fight was stopped in the 3rd round due to a cut over Campbell’s left eye from a head clash.

However, Campbell was getting dominated by Bradley in the three rounds of the fight and looked slow and not with it. The fight was ruled a no contest. Campbell would be a tough opponent for Maidana because he has good power and he could make it interesting if he could land his shots. Campbell sometimes drops his head and there’s always a chance of a cut opening up when you fight him. Maidana would have to be extra careful if he fought him to avoid clashing heads.

Of the four, I’m guessing that Holt will be the one that gets chosen. He’s the better known of the four, but he’s also someone who could be taken out the quickest. He’s been knocked out before and if Maidana can put hands on him, Holt might just go.