By Keith Idec

Josesito Lopez occupied a very similar position this time last year.

Only now, “The Riverside Rocky” is an underdog against the huge puncher that made Victor Ortiz quit, not Ortiz. Lopez respects Marcos Maidana’s power and understands the difficulty of his task Saturday night, but he’ll approach their guaranteed slugfest the only way he knows how.

“Going into this fight, I feel like I did before I fought Victor Ortiz,” Lopez said. “I know I need to get Maidana’s respect and the way to do that is to fight him.”

That’s a dangerous strategy, but Lopez suspects a brutal brawl is inevitable between them once the bell rings at Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

“This will be an all-action fight with the two best welterweights in the world going at it and trading their best shots,” Lopez said. “I’m not going to predict a knockout, but I don’t see how this fight can end any other way.”

The 28-year-old Lopez lives in Riverside, Calif., about an hour from Home Depot Center, and thus figures to be crowd favorite against Argentina’s Maidana (33-3, 30 KOs).

“It’ll be great to have the fans behind me,” Lopez said. “I fight to please the fans. That’s my style. I want to put on a show, but I know I have to fight smart.”

Maidana, 29, has knocked out 83 percent of his opponents, but Lopez (30-5, 18 KOs, 1 NC) has displayed a reliable chin apart from his fifth-round technical knockout loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in his last fight. Lopez realized he didn’t belong competing at 154 pounds after Alvarez dropped him three times Sept. 15 in Las Vegas.

He feels much more comfortable at 147 pounds, the weight at which he broke Ortiz’s jaw and scored a career-changing upset last June 23, when Ortiz couldn’t continue after nine rounds at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Maidana floored Ortiz twice during their wild brawl in June 2009 at Staples Center.

“These kinds of fights bring out the best in me,” Lopez said. “Maidana is one of the most dangerous guys out there, but I’m ready to prove myself again. As a fan, I am excited about this fight. Even before the fight was signed I knew this would be a great fight.”

The 12-round Maidana-Lopez bout will headline a Showtime tripleheader scheduled to start at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT. The telecast also will include a 12-round junior middleweight battle between Cuban southpaw Erislandy Lara (17-1-2, 11 KOs) and Mexico’s Alfredo Angulo (22-2, 18 KOs) and another 12-round, 154-pound fight that’ll match Philadelphia’s Demetrius Hopkins (33-2-1, 13 KOs) against Houston’s Jermell Charlo (20-0, 10 KOs).

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.