A function was hosted by journalists, family and friends for Marcos "El Chino" Maidana, who returned to his native Argentina after spending two months training in Las Vegas, where last Saturday he lost a close fight to Amir Khan - in what many experts are calling one of the best fights of the year.
Far from showing long faces, Maidana and his team were very pleased with what was done by "El Chino", who amazingly recovered from a knockdown in the first round and ended the fight by chasing Khan around the ring at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.
"The truth is I can not be too happy because I lost. But despite the anger I'm happy because I know I gave a very good fight and people saw me both in the U.S. and Argentina," said Maidana.
The Argentine knockout artist will next week travel to the province of Santa Fe, which is native to rest of his family.
"I need a break because the fight was hard. Khan is a very good fighter, very fast. He narrowly escaped a loss in the tenth. I think I needed to connect with one more clear hit and he would have gone down to the mat. But he is very fast and he was not easy to catch," said the Argentine boxer.
Among the members of his team, however, there is a widespread dissatisfaction with the performance of referee Joe Cortez.
"We knew this could happen. So, three days before the fight we protested the appointment of Cortez in a note to the Nevada State Athletic Commission. We expressed three points."
"1) that Khan had a tendency to push down the opponent's head and grab too much and that, in this sense, Cortez had allowed many such fouls during the fight between Celestino Caballero and Jason Litzau, one week before, 2) Cortez did not have the physical ability to lead a battle as fast as Khan vs. Maidana, 3) unusually, there was not a single designated official representative of the WBA being that it was a unification of the organization," said Sebastian Contursi, Maidana's adviser.
"As always, they listened to our arguments and must now be regretting their decision because the world has seen that Maidana had to fight Khan and Cortez himself. It was a shame," said Contursi.
Maidana, meanwhile, says he is excited about the prospect of continuing to be considered among the best in the 140-pound division.
"After the fight they all came to congratulate me. Oscar de la Hoya and Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions, told me they want to come to Argentina in January, to a party in my honor. Kery Davis, Director of HBO boxing, said he wants to me to fight again on the network as soon as possible. And it was confirmed that WBA will still rank me well. So now, after resting, I'll be training again very hard to have a great 2011," said El Chino.
"As we were fighting an Englishman and the fight was televised live for England, we decided to show the flag, in tribute to the kids of the Falklands and the British know that we do not forget the islands."
