Maidana stops Petrov in fourth round

In front of an enthusiastic crowd of his countrymen at Sociedad Alemana in the Villa Ballester area of Buenos Aires, Argentina, junior welterweight Marcos Maidana floored his rival twice in the fourth and final round of Friday night's knockout win over Russian-born Petr Petrov.

With this win against the largely untested Petrov (29-3-2, 13 KOs), a resident of Madrid, Spain, the 28-year-old Maidana (31-2, 28 KOs) successfully defended his WBA "regular" title and notched his second consecutive win since losing to Amir Khan in December of last year.

Petrov was a replacement for five-belt, three-division titleholder Robert Guerrero (29-1-1, 18 KOs), whose shoulder injury forced him to pull out of a scheduled Aug. 27 bout that was to be televised on HBO.

Maidana was coming off of a majority decision win over 34-year-old current WBC beltholder Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KOs) in April.

The 28-year-old Petrov had won 13 straight fights, including four knockouts, but had competed mostly in six-to-eight round fights, having gone as many as eight rounds only four times.

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lem.satterfield@gmail.com