Marcos Maidana took two straight defeats to Floyd Mayweather Jr. this year, but the Argentine boxing superstar is still thinking of big fights for 2015.
Maidana, the former World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight champion, expressed interest in facing Manny Pacquiao in a big-money fight next year instead of having a rematch against Adrien Broner or Amir Khan.
Broner and Khan would be a good opponent for Maidana. The 31-year-old is looking to avenge his defeat to Khan in 2010 and also wants to prove that his win against Broner is no fluke, but he reiterated that Pacquiao remains on top of their list of possible opponents.
"Pacquiao is possible," Maidana said of facing the former pound-for-pound king via BoxingScene. "I do not think any other fighter can be better than Pacquiao at this time. There is talk of a rematch with Broner, but I wouldn't really want that. I'll wait to see if I can get the fight with Pacquiao, but we'll wait. I'd like Pacquiao."
Maidana, who holds a 35-5 record with 31 victories by way of knockout, insisted that a rematch with Khan or Broner is not too appealing to him. He pointed out that fight fans would love to seem him fight Pacquiao because their fighting styles are perfect recipe for an action-packed showdown.
"A fight with him would be very good because of the way he fights," Maidana added. "Before the second fight with Mayweather, Top Rank had offered a fight with him but we preferred to face Mayweather because we were familiar with him and we were hoping to win. We thought we were going to win because the first fight had been close. We decided to grab Mayweather, so we'll see if next year we can get Pacquiao."
Robert Garcia, Maidana's trainer, also said recently that he thinks Maidana deserves to get big fights next year after his performance against Mayweather, who escaped with a close decision win in May before scoring a convincing victory in their rematch in September.
Pacquiao is set to defend his World Boxing Organization welterweight title against Chris Algieri on Nov. 22 in Macau where a win could set him up for a showdown against Mayweather next year. But if the fight doesn't happen, Maidana could get a shot against the Filipino boxing icon.
