Maidana fighting to stay relevant against Soto-Karass on 9/15

By Boxing News - 08/19/2012 - Comments

Image: Maidana fighting to stay relevant against Soto-Karass on 9/15By Dan Ambrose: Welterweight Marcos Maidana (31-3, 28 Ko’s) is in a must win situation against junior middleweight Jesus Soto-Karass (26-7-3, 17 KO’s) in a 10 round bout on September 15th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana lost his last fight against Devon Alexander earlier in the year and he can’t take another loss if he wants to continue to be relevant.

It’s one thing losing to guys like Amir Khan and Devon Alexander, but whole different matter getting taken down by someone like Soto-Karass. Maidana isn’t helping his situation by moving up in weight, failing against Alexander, and then fighting an even bigger fighter in Soto-Karass in a toss up fight in his very next bout.

It’s like Maidana is asking for problems by taking a fight like this. However, it’s potentially a positive for Maidana, because if he can win this fight in an exciting war that steals the thunder from the main event fight between Josesito Lopez and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez, Maidana can strengthen his position as one of HBO’s most exciting fighters on their television network.

Maidana is well paid because he brings excitement. However, his loss to Alexander was a terrible one last February, and Maidana can’t afford to get beaten like that again. You can kind of give Maidana a break for that defeat because Alexander was clinching him 10 times a round and the referee didn’t take any points off for it to prevent it from occurring.

Maidana couldn’t get his shots off because Alexander kept grabbing him in clinches every time he’d get ready to throw a punch. Maidana didn’t have the inside fighting skills to take advantage of Alexander’s clinching the way that Tim Bradley did in his win over Alexander last year. Instead of making Alexander pay each time he grabbed him by tagging him hard with shots while being held, Maidana simply allowed Alexander to hold without hitting him.



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