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.

Oh, man, in less than a month, on June 8, we figure to have quite a main event at Home Depot Center between Marcos Maidana and Josesito Lopez (on Showtime).

Maidana (33-3, 30 KOs), of Argentina, is one of the hardest punchers, pound-for-pound, in the world – he has a knockout ratio of 83 percent.

Lopez (30-5, 18 KOs) does not have the fight-by-fight destructiveness Maidana has, but Lopez showed what he can do in a given fight when he broke the jaw of Victor Ortiz in their fight in June 2012 at Staples Center. Lopez was losing on the scorecards, but he won via ninth-round when Ortiz could not answer the bell for the 10th round because of his broken jaw.

This could be a real good one. The fighters thinks so, too.

“I know Josesito is a great fighter,” Maidana said. “I know he likes to stand and trade and fight.That’s what I do and that’s why it’s going to be such an exciting fight.”

Lopez had an interesting take.

“I’m so excited about this fight, and I’m the one receiving the punches,” he said. “I can only imagine how excited the fans are. Years ago before I was at this level, I thought, ‘Man, this would be an exciting fight. I would love to get in there and bang with him.’ Now we’re here. It’s a hell of a matchup. It could be fight of the year.”

Tickets are $25, $50, $75 and $150 and can be purchased a variety of ways, including online at AXS.com or the Home Depot Center box office

The event is being staged by Golden Boy Promotions.