By William Mackay: While few boxing fans are giving number #1 mandatory contender Dmitriy Salita (30-0-1, 16 KO’s) much of a chance against WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (21-1, 15 KO’s), World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye isn’t one of them, saying in a news article from Sportinglife “Salita is a solid fighter and is very good. I know a few people who have seen him in the past saying he could be trouble.”

Khan, 22, will be facing the older more experienced 27-year-old Salita on December 5th at the Metro Arena, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear. Khan will have the speed advantage and will also be fighting in front of a friendly crowd. However, Salita knows this is his one big chance to capture a title and gain himself recognition in the boxing world by stopping Khan.

Salita will be looking to take Khan’s head off with every punch he throws, knowing that Khan has a problem with taking hard shots. Salita has pointed that out in the past weeks, saying that Khan is ‘Chinny,” meaning that he has problems taking hard shots. Khan was knocked out in the 1st round last year by the hard punching Colombian Breidis Prescott, who just happens to be fighting on the undercard on December 5th against Kevin Mitchell.

If Prescott looks good in taking out Mitchell in impressive fashion, there will be increased pressure for Khan to finally step up to the plate and try and avenge his knockout loss to Prescott. Thus far, Khan has resisted the urging from boxing fans to try and get revenge against Prescott.

By not dealing with Prescott, it seems to have left a lasting memory for many boxing fans and they don’t seem to be forgetting about the fight regardless of how many fights that Khan puts between him and Prescott. By putting Prescott on the undercard, it would seem to make things only worse. Mitchell is a good fighter, but many boxing people think he’s being led to a slaughter on December 5th.

However, if Mitchell does somehow beat Prescott, it still could make Khan look bad, because Mitchell is a super featherweight and stands only 5’8” compared to the 5’11” Prescott. Mitchell will be moving up in weight to take on the lightweight Prescott.

Khan recently captured the WBA light welterweight title in July with a 12 round decision over Ukrainian Andriy Kotelnik. Khan changed his style of fighting under new trainer Freddie Roach, and elected to move for the full 12 rounds against Kotelnik, rarely standing to trade. It worked for Khan, because he only got hit when he would stop on rare occasions.

It’s hard to say how good Salita is, because he’s faced mostly B level fighters during his eight year pro career. However, in looking at video of him, Salita looks like he has decent power, a nice left hook and a right hand that could be problems for Khan if he gets hit too much.

Salita isn’t all that fast, but he’s about the same height as Khan. Salita is good at pressuring his opponents and cuts off the ring well. Khan will be forced to fight it out with him at some point because of Salita’s pressure style of fighting.