By Jim Dower: World Boxing Association light welterweight interim champion Marcos Rene Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s) made short work of William Gonzalez (22-6-1, 7 KO’s) on Saturday night, stopping Gonzalez in the 3rd round of a scheduled 12 round bout at the Club Deportivo Libertad, Sunchales, Santa Fe, Argentina. Maidana, 26, caught Gonzalez up against the ropes in the third round and landed a hard left to the midsection that sent Gonzalez down on his knees on the canvas.

Referee Enrique Portocarrero then stepped in and stopped the bout at 2:20 of the round when it became clear that Gonzalez was too hurt to get back to his feet. Maidana retains the WBA title and stays on course for an eventual title match between him and WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan.

Maidana started slowly in the first two rounds, getting backed up repeatedly by Gonzalez who took the fight to Maidana and seemed totally unafraid of his power shots. Other than an occasional big right to the head and left to the midsection, Maidana did very little in the first two rounds of the fight. He seemed to be taking it easy on Gonzalez and trying to prolong the fight.

In the 3rd round, things got ugly early in the round when Gonzalez nailed Maidana with a hard rabbit punch to the back of the head as Maidana was walking across the ring to get in position to fight. This seemed to anger Maidana, who attacked Gonzalez hard, backing him up and nailing him with huge shots on the inside. The punches didn’t travel very far but had a lot of power on them. Gonzalez was now thinking survival instead of slugging it out with Maidana and backed all the way up to the ropes where he briefly tried to fight it out with Maidana. It was no use, as Maidana nailed Gonzalez with a half dozen power shots ending with a hard left to the midsection that sent Gonzalez down on his knees on the canvas where he was quickly counted out.

Maidana looked very powerful in the fight, and it would have been interesting to see how Khan would have been able to deal with his power. Khan would have been forced to move a great deal if he would have wanted to survive the big power shots from Maidana. Khan would have a big advantage in speed, but if Maidana catches up to him there it might be bad for Khan.