Josesito Lopez of Riverside and Marcos Maidana of Argentina will square off in what figures to be a terrific welterweight main event Saturday at Home Depot Center (on Showtime). The final news conference promoting the Golden Boy Promotions event was held Thursday at HDC. It got kind of funny at the end.

As is always the case, the main event fighters are the last to speak after being introduced by their respective promoters. Ken Thompson co-promotes Lopez along with Dan Goossen. Thompson, a building materials mogul, is an excitable type. As he was introducing Lopez, he said that when the night is over, one great fighter – Maidana – will be on the canvas while the other – Lopez – will have his hand raised.

That evoked a rather hilarious, if not silly, comment from Maidana.

“This gentleman is saying I’m going to be laid flat, but it’s not that easy,” Maidana said, pointing to Thompson. “It looks easy as a spectator, but why doesn’t he (Thompson) get in there?”

The couple of hundred in attendance laughed out-loud. Guess that’s because Thompson is at least in his late 60s.

Perhaps Maidana should have just taken what Thompson said and kept his mouth shut. After all, Maidana was over an hour late to the news conference, which made a lot of people there unhappy.

Maidana, 29, is 33-3 with 30 knockouts. Lopez, 28, is 30-5 with 18 knockouts.