By Dan Ambrose: With the pulling out of Lucas Matthysse from his fight with Erik Morales on the September 17th fight card, Marcos Maidana was then asked by Golden Boy Promotions if he wanted to step in and fight Morales in a rematch on this important highly visible pay per view fight card at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Most fighters would jump at the chance to be seen fighting on this card, as Floyd Mayweather Jr. headlines it against WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz and it’s a card that will likely be seen by millions of boxing fans across the globe. However, instead of accepting the rematch with Morales, Maidana reportedly declined, preferring to take on little known 2nd tier fighter Petr Petrov in Maidana’s home country of Argentina on September 23.
So did Maidana duck the Morales fight? Why wouldn’t he take this fight when it would have meant much more visibility for himself, not to mention a fairly easy route to add another title to his collection. It’s kind of mind boggling that Maidana would turn this fight down, as he already beat Morales last April and in a rematch you would have to favor Maidana again because of his power, youth and workrate.
Maidana wore Morales down last time out and gave him a lot of problems with his aggression. I don’t know about you but I think it was a really decision for Maidana not to accept the rematch with Morales. It doesn’t get better than this, and it would have given Maidana another title which he could have used to try and lure Amir Khan into giving him a rematch. Did Maidana not get the full picture of what he stood to gain by fighting Morales again or was he afraid of how tough it would be to fight Morales one more time. After all, Maidana has got an easy fight scheduled with a second tier fighter Petrov. That’s a fight that Maidana can probably win in his sleep without any trouble, but the Morales rematch would have forced Maidana to exert himself much more to get the victory. Morales is no easy win. So did Maidana duck him or what? That’s what a lot of boxing fans are saying today. Did Maidana prefer to take the easier fight with Petrov rather than a fight with Morales that would have been riskier?
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