By Aaron Klein: After last Saturday night’s shocking 1st round knockout loss for British lightweight sensation Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KOs) there’s a lot of questions about his once promising career with many boxing fans and writers feeling that he may ruined as a fighter and unable to come back from this defeat.

His image, however, has taken a major hit and it’s questionable whether he’ll be able to bring back the status he previously held unless he does something bold and dramatic fight like fighting Breidis Prescott (20-0, 18 KOs) in an immediately rematch. Obviously this would seem like a risky perhaps even foolhardy thing for Khan to do given his 1st round destruction to knockout artist Prescott last Saturday, but it’s probably the only way that Khan can ever recapture both his self respect and the respect from boxing fans.

I personally think that Khan could easily beat Prescott in a rematch if he were stick to a tactical game plan, choosing to box the Colombian rather than trying to engage him like he did on Saturday night. In hindsight, Khan should have never fought a fighter as powerful as Prescott at this early stage in Khan’s career.

The warning signs were already there, knockdowns against the light-hitting Willie Limond and Michael Gomez, which made it clear that Khan’s chin wasn’t ready for a powerhouse puncher like Prescott. Even if the Colombian hadn’t really fought anyone of note, you could see that his power was legit. Trying to mix it up with him at close range was a bone-headed move by Khan, one that I’m sure he wish that he could take back if given a second chance to redo the fight.

However, what’s done is done, and he needs to try and make it right the next time out by fighting the way he should have fought in the first place. Although he Khan can choose to avoid fighting a rematch with Prescott, and move on towards easier opponents like John Murray or Yuri Romanov, it’s going to leave unfinished business. It’s never a good thing to do this, because the fans never forget the defeat and lose interest when there’s no attempt at avenging the defeat. Certainly, some fighters, like Wladimir Klitschko, never chose to get revenge for past defeats and instead moved on to other fights.

However, I think that hurt him because it seemed to leave doubts with many fans about him as a fighter. Khan needs to avoid this from happening to him. If he’s going to get knocked out, that’s way things happen. It will happen sooner or later regardless of whether he avoids fighting Prescott again, for if Khan truly has dreams of being a champion in the lightweight or junior welterweight divisions, he would have to be able to take big punches from fighters like Juan Diaz, Nate Campbell, Michael Katsidis, Ricky Hatton or Timothy Bradley, to name just a few good fighters.

He’d be kidding himself if he thought that he could tiptoe around all the tough fighters and finagle his way into a title shots without being tested by another big puncher. Sure, he can do this, but it would be like a school boy cheating on an exam in order to be placed in a higher class. When he gets to that level, he would be hopelessly outclassed and would fail miserably. If Khan is only interested in getting one big fight against one of the champions, then I’d say go ahead and avoid fighting Prescott. However, if Khan is truly interested in improving as a fighter, learning from his mistakes and moving forward with his career, then he needs to immediately fight Prescott again and try to avenge the defeat.

Khan may lose again, there’s no doubt. If he does, it just means that he’s not in the right profession and needs to seriously consider finding another line of work. It doesn’t get easier regardless of whether or not he avoids fighting Prescott again, because Diaz, Campbell, Katsidis, Joan Guzman, Anthony Peterson, and Juan Manuel Marquez, are all much better than Prescott in my estimation and these are fighters that Khan would have to face sooner or later if he was serious about becoming a champion.

For this reason, I would strongly advise for Khan to get it over with and face Prescott as soon as possible. If he loses, he loses, that’s the way it goes. Who knows? Maybe Khan’s chin wasn’t made for boxing, but if it isn’t, he’s not going very much further whether he chooses to fight Prescott or not.