Maidana vs. Holt on November 28th?

By Boxing News - 09/07/2009 - Comments

maidana4343By Chris Williams: According to the latest boxing news, interim WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (26-1, 25 KO’s) could be facing former World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Kendall Holt (25-3, 13 KO’s) on November 28th, on HBO’s Boxing After Dark.

The fight, which probably deserves to be the main event because of the quality nature of the bout, while likely be on the undercard of the IBF super middleweight bout between champion Lucian Bute and challenger Librado Andrade at the Pepsi Coliseum, in Quebec, Canada. If Holt-Maidana end up on the Andrade-Bute undercard, this would be one of the best boxing events in some time, certainly much better than the crummy Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez card, which is loaded with mostly dull, barely watch able, fights.

Holt, 28, hasn’t fought since losing a 12 round decision to Timothy Bradley in April. Holt knocked Bradley down twice in the fight with huge shots, but was outworked in the other rounds. Despite losing the fight, Holt looked good in parts, especially when he was throwing fast punches.

However, Holt has a history of being a little weak in the chin and has been stopped by both Thomas Davis and Ricardo Torres. Holt stopped Torres in the 1st round after banging heads with him and knocking Torres completely out. The referee missed the head butt and gave Holt the victory.

It’s too bad there wasn’t an instant replay for that bout, because if there was ever a fight that cried out for replay, it was that fight. Holt was dropped twice in the 1st round by huge right hands from Torres and looked to be on his way to being stopped by the Columbian when the clash of heads occurred.

Holt was stopped by Torres in the 11th round a year earlier, in September 2007. That fight, too, was controversial because the fight was stopped in the 11th, despite Holt still upright and more or less fighting back.

Maidana, 26, has only one loss on his record, a 12-round decision defeat at the hands of Andriy Kotelnik in February 2009. By many accounts, however, Maidana should have won the fight by a round or two. I’m in agreement with that opinion, because I had Maidana winning the bout by two rounds over Kotelnik.

However, Maidana, who comes from Argentina, was at a slight disadvantage in that fight because he was fighting in Germany, the adopted country of Kotelnik, meaning that he’d have to do a little bit more – like knock Kotelnik out, for example – if Maidana wanted to get the victory over there.

Most recently, Maidana defeated Victor Ortiz by a 6th round stoppage in June, a fight in which there were a total of five knock downs. Maidana was knocked down once in the first round and then two more times in the 2nd. However, just when it seemed like Maidana was on the verge of being knocked out by Ortiz, Maidana came roaring back and hurt Ortiz at the end of the 5th with a huge right hand. And in the 6th round, Maidana finished off the still badly hurt Ortiz after knocking him to the canvas.

In a way, Holt vs. Maidana would be a lot like the Holt-Torres bout, except that Maidana appears to have a better chin than Torres and slightly better power in close. Torres is a huge puncher, but he doesn’t consistently get as much power on his shots as Maidana does.



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