By Jason Kim: Marcos Maidana (30-2, 27 KO’s) was given the offer by Golden Boy Promotions to step in and face Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s) for the vacant WBC light welterweight title on Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz card next week on September 17th in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Maidana, however, reportedly refused the offer to fight on the prestigious fight card, and will instead be fighting Petr Petrov, a fighter that few boxing fans have ever heard of at the Sosciedad Aleman, Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In fairness to Maidana, perhaps he had already signed for the Petrov fight and was bound by the fight contract, although he should have put in an escape route in case something better came up like the Morales rematch.
Some boxing fans have reacted negatively towards Maidana’s refusal to fight Morales again, seeing him as afraid of Morales and not wanting to experience the pain and the grueling nature of a fight with “El Terrible.”
Maidana obviously has his reasons for declining the fight, but if it was because of not being in top shape, it’s hard to imagine how Maidana couldn’t have been in tip top shape. After all, he was training very hard up to a week before his previously scheduled August 27th fight with Robert Guerrero.
That fight was cancelled after Guerrero tore up his left rotator cuff while sparring and week before the fight, making it necessary for him to pull out of the bout. it’s been three weeks since the Guerrero fight went down the drain, and Maidana should be still in good enough shape to fight an aging fighter like Morales you would think.
It doesn’t really make any sense to turn down the Morales fight to take on a little known guy like Petrov. If Maidana did this for his fans in Argentina, that’s nice but it seems like a bad career move to turn down a huge fight for another title agiant Morales to instead fight someone that boxing fans have never even heard of. If Maidana’s goal is to try and pressure Amir Khan into fighting him again then he really missed a perfect opportunity to apply some pressure by beating Morales in a rematch and capturing another title. That would have been the ideal thing to do instead of fighting Petrov.
As for Morales, his promoters are still looking for a replacement opponent for him so that he can remain on the Mayweather-Ortiz card. Whoever that fighter is, he’s going to be a lucky one because he’ll be getting a lot of attention and a chance to capture the WBC belt.
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