By William Mackay: Fading star Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s) badly wants a second shot at fighting Marcos Maidana after losing a close 12 round majority decision to him last April. Morales fought well at times but failed to throw enough punches and faded badly in the last three rounds of the fight.

Morales now will be fighting #7 ranked World Boxing Council contender Lucas Matthysse (28-2, 26 KO’s) for the vacant WBC light welterweight title on September 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Despite the clear loss to Maidana, Morales is still ranked at #3 by the WBC. The chances of him getting another shot at Maidana are poor at best.

On top of the slim chances that the aging Morales can get past the hard hitting Matthysse in September, Maidana has really got his hands full with a fight against Robert Guerrero for the WBA light welterweight title on August 27th. Guerrero is probably the best fighter that Maidana has ever fought up to this point in terms of ability and youth, and it’s a big ask for Maidana to win this fight.

It’s going to come down to whether he can knock Guerrero out. If he can’t, he’s going to lose the fight. There won’t be any point of having a rematch between Morales and Maidana if one or both of these guys lose their next fight. Morales would then have yet another fighter that he would like to fight again.

Morales said the same thing after he battled hard to defeat C level fighter Willie Limond, who Morales struggled to beat in September 2010. Although Morales eventually was able to stop Limond in the 6th, he was losing the fight at the time of the stoppage.