By Dan Ambrose: It’s abundantly clear that Australian Michael Katsidis (28-6, 23 KO’s) made a major blunder by moving up to light welterweight to face 5’10” Albert Mensah (25-3-1, 10 KO’s) last night in Katsidis’ 10 round majority decision loss at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a bad decision because all you had to do was take one look at Mensah on Youtube to see that he’s a huge light welterweight after he rehydrates.

Katsidis looked like he was fighting a junior middleweight last night and his lack of size compared to Mensah was pretty startling. I give Katsidis a lot of credit for being able to hurt Mensah in the 7th with a series of big shots. However, Mensah was able to finish the last three rounds in a strong fashion by landing some big left hooks and right hands against the crowding Kastsidis.

Katsidis did a good job considering his lack of size. Katsidis threw a ton of shots and he had Mensah backed against the ropes for most of the fight. If he had a little more size he would have won the fight.

I don’t see Katsidis as being shot. I just see him being the victim of bad matchmaking in his defeats against Robert Guerrero, Ricky Burns, Juan Manuel Marquez and Mensah. Those aren’t good match-ups for Katsidis and he shouldn’t have been put in with them in the first place.

I can see Katsidis moving back down and finding success at lightweight as long as he’s matched against guys that his style gels with. If it were possible, Katsidis should consider moving down to super featherweight (130lbs) because he’d do really well at that weight. He might not be good enough to beat the best guy at super featherweight like Adrien Broner, but he would be more than a handful against the other top fighters.

Katsidis needs to mater the game of losing water weight to make weight. He should talk to WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to find out what tricks he’s using to get down to 160 and then blow up to 180 he day of the fight. If Katsidis could do that he would be fighting at 130 and stepping into the ring as a full fledged junior middleweight the night of the fight. Katsidis would dominate almost anyone with that kind of size. But he’s got to figure out Chavez Jr. is able to take the weight off without draining himself.