The Khan-Maidana fight not a sure thing – News

By Nate Anderson: It’s bout between WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan and World Boxing Association light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana isn’t a sure thing after all. There are reports that Golden Boy Promotions is still deciding who they want Khan to fight in April, and it might not be the hard hitting Maidana. Golden Boy wants Khan to fight an established star, someone that Amir can look good against, because this will be the first bout for Khan in the United States.

Maidana isn’t a fighter that Khan will have much of a chance to look good against, especially if Khan is running for his life all night long or getting knocked down and beaten. Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach also isn’t comfortable with Khan facing Maidana at this time.

Roach wants more time to build this fight up and feel that it can be a huge fight at some time in the future once Maidana and Khan are better known. You can’t disagree with that. However, the problem is that Khan, unless he wants to vacate his title, might only be able to get one fight in at the most before having to fight Maidana.

He won’t be able to fight four or five times before having to face Maidana. If we’re talking about Maidana and Khan fighting only once in the U.S against soft opposition before they meet up later in 2010, it might not make much of a difference. It takes a good opponent for a fighter to get attention in the United States and I think Roach might be missing that point.

Light hitting Paulie Malignaggi is the fighter that Khan would most likely be matched against, and that’s probably not someone with enough power to make Khan look good against. Khan needs someone that will be a test for him and not a fighter that will spoil and make him look bad. If they choose Malignaggi, I see that as a mistake. Malignaggi will frustrate Khan.

At the same time, beating him isn’t the same as beating someone who is trying to take Khan’s head off. Ricky Hatton would be a great opponent for Khan to fight instead of Malignaggi. But Hatton doesn’t seem too interested in taking the fight with Khan.

Hatton is already a star in the U.S. and it wouldn’t help him any if he were to face Khan in America. That’s a fight that would only do well if it takes place in the UK, not America. Hatton would be better off going after Juan Manuel Marquez.

Golden Boy will be making a decision soon about who Khan’s next opponent will be. They have a two extension to make a decision whether to fight Maidana or try to buy some time and squeeze in a voluntary defense in between that fight against someone like Malignaggi. If that happens, Maidana could fight on the undercard against someone.

As I said, I doubt that that Khan will come out shining in a fight against Malignaggi, and I also doubt that fans will notice Maidana much if he’s matched against someone that he can just roll over. If they do this, they’ve got to find opponents that can give Khan and Maidana some genuine trouble. That’s what interest fans. They don’t want to see mismatches. A Khan-Malignaggi fight isn’t a mismatch, but it would likely be a dull fight because of the all the movement. You can’t have two hunt and peck fighters in there without boring the crowd to death.

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