By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) will begin training with trainer Robert Garcia at his Oxnard, California gym in September to get ready for a potential fight in November, according to Fight News.

Maidana hasn’t fought since September, 2014, when he lost to WBA/WBC 147lb champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 116-111, 116-111 and 115-112 in their rematch.

In the 11 months that the #4 WBA Maidana has been out of the ring, he’s put on a great deal of weight. Some boxing fans estimate Maidana’s weight to be in the 200s. That’s not a lot of weight for a tall person, but for the 5’8” Maidana, it’s a ton of weight, especially given that he fights in the 147lb division.

If Maidana has to take off over 50+ pounds of fat to get ready for a fight in November, he might not be able to make the welterweight limit. As heavy as Maidana looked in recent photos, it’s very unlikely that he’ll be able to strip off all the weight by November unless he goes on a crash diet.

It would be in Maidana’s best interest to take the weight off slowly and come back in 2016 after he’s taken it all off rather than fight at 160 for his next fight. Maidana doesn’t have the size to fight in the middleweight division or even the junior middleweight division, but that’s what he would likely be looking at if he takes off a bunch of weight quickly to get back inside the ring.

Ideally, Maidana needs a couple of tune-ups to get back into fighting shape before he starts looking to fight the likes of WBA champion Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia or Amir Khan. A fight between Maidana and Danny Garcia is a possibility. The match has been mentioned, but I don’t think it would be a good fight for Maidana right now in his first fight back from a long layoff and a huge weight gain.

Maidana lucked out with his two big payday fights against Mayweather in 2014. He came close to beating Mayweather in their first fight in May of 2014, but he struggled in their rematch in September of last year when Mayweather opted to use a lot of movement against him.

Unfortunately for Maidana, he’s not likely to get another huge money like that ever again unless the middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez opts to fight him in his special weight division at 155. For Maidana to get that fight, he’s going to need to prove that he can beat guys like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan and Danny Garcia.

Thurman would be a good fight for Maidana, but it would be a situation where Maidana would have to chase a constantly backpedaling Thurman around the ring all night long because Thurman does not fight in the pocket. He’s strictly a hit and run fighter, and it’s not very interesting to watch if you like to see fighters that stay in one place. Maidana would do better against a traditional that stands his ground a little more like Danny Garcia or Shawn Porter. At least Maidana wouldn’t have to chase those guys around the ring all night long like he would if he fought Thurman or Amir Khan.

Maidana is going to need to avoid taking any additional long breaks in his career if he wants to make the most of the time that he has left in his boxing career. He’s also going to need to keep his weight at a more manageable level because he can’t afford to keep ballooning up in weight like he did this last time. It’s really hard on your body to put on a massive amount of weight like Maidana recently did. Maidana is a highly paid athlete. He can’t afford to let his body weight get out of control like normal people do unless he wants to jeopardize his career. Maidana has all the time in the world to let his weight get out of control after he retires from the sport, but he’s still competing, he needs to focus on living a spartan lifestyle.

It’s too bad that Maidana can’t fight some of Top Rank’s fighters because it would be interesting to see how Maidana would do against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Brandon Rios or Tim Bradley.