By Scott Gilfoid: With all this talk about WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (21-1, 15 KO’s) fighting Ricky Hatton or Timothy Bradley, I never for a second believed that it would happen. As it turns out, I’m probably right about my predictions, because the latest boxing news floating around the net is that Khan, 22, will likely face his number #1 mandatory challenger, Ukrainian Dimitry Salita (30-0-1, 16 KO’s) instead of a much more lucrative bout against Hatton.
I didn’t think Hatton would be willing to break his time out from boxing to take a fight against Khan at this point. Though it would be a great fight to watch, I don’t think Hatton wanted the fight unless he could promote it himself. And that’s not going to happen in a million years as long as Khan has another promoter working for him.
Khan recently defeated WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik by a 12-round unanimous decision on July 18th in Manchester. It’s a win that gave Khan a little bit of credibility since he was able to move up in weight and capture a title.
However, the win has come at a cost, Khan will now be forced to defend the title against some of the less appealing challengers like Salita. This means that Khan won’t be free to take on anyone he wants for as long as he’s tied down with the WBA title, which many boxing fans feel is a paper title because Khan beat a fighter who was considered to be the weakest of the light welterweight champions.
You’ll notice that Khan didn’t go after WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, and instead went after the fighter perceived to be any easy option. The good news is that Salita isn’t considered to be all that good by a lot of people.
Indeed, in looking at Salita’s boxing record, it’s hard to see how he was ever pushed to the number #1 spot in the WBA rankings. I can’t recognize one name among Salita’s 31 fights, not one. I don’t know who these fighters are and it seems peculiar that the WBA put Salita at number #1 based on these wins.
I’ve seen Salita fight on a couple of occasions and wasn’t at all impressed with what I saw in him. His hand speed is poor, his power is below average, he stands straight up and his defense is poor. Salita has beaten every fighter that’s been put in front of him, but that’s not saying a lot given his soft resume.
From what I see of him, I think Salita belongs in the 2nd tier, not among the 1st. But I guess that works well for Khan, because he’ll be able to get an easy win against a fighter with an inflated record. Maybe there are some boxing fans that will be impressed enough with Salita’s unbeaten record to give Khan credit when he beats him.
Once Salita is out of the way, things get more interesting for Khan. He will have to defend his title against one of the top 15 light welterweights in the WBA, and most of them look pretty good fighters. None of them will be easy for Khan to beat. I just hope Khan doesn’t vacate the title rather than have to fight one of them.
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