By Jim Dower: Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’s) could be facing #1 ranked WBC light welterweight contender Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) in the next two months on April 9th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana reports that his team are currently working on putting the fight together with the 34-year-old Morales for this date.

Morales had been in negotiations with Juan Manuel Marquez for this date until he had a change of mind and backed out. This has opened up the opportunity for what will likely be an even bigger mismatch because Maidana is a bigger puncher than Marquez and Morales tends to get hit a lot in his fights.

Morales figures to have problems in this fight because he’s spent much of his career at super bantamweight and featherweight. Although Morales is only an inch shorter than Maidana at 5’8″ compared to the 5’9″ Maidana, he doesn’t have Maidana’s stocky build nor his punching power. What Morales does have is the ability to go to the body well. This may be one area where Morales will have a chance to beat Maidana because Khan, who isn’t much of a body puncher, dropped Maidana in the 1st round of their fight with a hard body shot.

Khan failed to go after Maidana with additional body shots. Morales is obviously going to look at the Khan-Maidana fight and focus on throwing to the body of Maidana to try and get a win. Morales stopped Willie Limond with a series of body shots two fights ago in September 2010. However, Limond didn’t have much power and wasn’t a world class fighter in the top tier. It’s going to be a different story with Maidana.

Maidana recently lost to WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan in December, but made it interesting in losing a 12 round decision. Maidana took the fight to Khan constantly and finally was able to catch up to the constant running Khan in the 10th and stagger him. Except for an occasional flurry of weak shots that mostly missed from Khan, it was all Maidana in the last three rounds as he battered Khan with punches and left him a bloody mess by the end of the fight.