By Michael Lieberman: Tickets for the huge clash between Marcos Maidana (29-2, 17 KO’s) and Eric Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) go on sale on on Thursday, February 17th. The fight will be taking place at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also on the card will be Robert Guerrero vs. Michael Katsidis in lightweight action, Ronald “Winky” Wright vs. Matthew Macklin in middleweight action.

Morales, a three-time champion, is facing one of the hardest punchers in the light welterweight division and perhaps the second best fighter in the division behind Amir Khan. Maidana is coming off of a 12 round war with Khan last December and is looking very powerful as he enters this fight with the 34-year-old fading fighter Morales. This is a make or break fight for Morales because is hoping to get a win here so that he can try and relive some of his past glory. However, it’s not likely that he’s going to be able to handle the big punching Maidana for long in this fight.

Morales’ entire career has been one in which he’s been the slugger. On April 9th, he’s going to have to adopt another approach if he’s to be successful because he simply doesn’t have the power to trade with Maidana for long without getting beaten into submission. Morales didn’t look good taking body shots in his last fight against Francisco Lorenzo in December. However, it’s going to be a lot worse for him with Maidana tagging him because he’s a much bigger puncher than Lorenzo.

Wright, 39, has only fought a handful of times in the past four years and he’s lost both of his last two fights against Bernard Hopkins and Paul Williams. Those are great fighters, but it Wright lost them both and didn’t react well by staying out of the ring. Macklin isn’t in the same league as those guys, but he’s young, active and he’s got good power. If he can push the pace of the fight to a place where Wright’s aging body can’t keep up, we could see Wright lose yet again.