By Jason Kim: Having now lost his last two fights to Robert Guerrero and Juan Manuel Marquez, lightweight contender Michael Katsidis (27-4, 22 KO’s) plans on making his next fight in Australia in July or August against a still to be determined opponent. Katsidis, 30, could have fought on a July 30th pay-per-view card but passed on that to take a much lower visibility fight in his native Australia for some reason.

It looks as if Katsidis wants to take it easy for a while after taking a royal pounding in his last two fights and wants to get a change of luck. Before those two fights, things were really running smoothly for Katsidis, as he had won four consecutive fights and had come up with a huge 3rd round stoppage win over lightweight contender Kevin Mitchell in May 2010. However, like in the past, Katsidis struggled when he moved up against better opposition and was beaten.

Back in 2008, Katsidis suffered back to back defeats at the hands of Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz. Katsidis took a lot of punishment in both of those fights and some people thought he was on his way down. But he came back from those defeats to beat Jesus Chavez, Vincente Escobedo and then Mitchell to get a title shot against Marquez.

Katsidis can’t afford to waste too much time beating B level opposition in Australia if he wants to stay relevant and take advantage of the little time left in his career. He needs to be fighting on PPV cards in the U.S and not turning them down to face obscure opposition in Austrlia. Ideally, Katsidis needs to go after someone like Diaz or Casamayor again or maybe of the other top lightweight contenders like Marco Antonio Barrera or Jorge Linares. With his name, Katsidis attracts a lot of attention and can really boost a PPV card.