Katsidis takes swipe at Khan for not fighting him

By Eric Thomas: World Boxing Organization lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis (26-2, 21 KO’s) took a crack at WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan in a press release that Katsidis sent out today. Katsidis says that Khan’s trainer wanted Amir to fight Katsidis and had confidence in him being about to get by Katsidis. However, Khan “refused” to fight Katsidis. This would have been a somewhat interesting fight if Khan had opted to look in the direction of Katsidis. But Khan is looking to go after bigger game than Katsidis and is trying to arrange a fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on May 15th.

Marquez, like Katsidis, is smaller than Khan and a lightweight rather than a light welterweight, but Marquez-Khan would be a much bigger fight than Khan-Katsidis. You can’t blame Khan for not being interested in the Katsidis fight if he has the potential to fight Marquez for his debut fight in the United States.

Katsidis probably isn’t a big enough name to get much attention from boxing fans in the U.S. Katsidis has fought four times in the U.S., losing half of the fights to Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz.

Katsidis is still interested in fighting a rematch with Juan Diaz on March 27th. Diaz already beat Katsidis by a 12 round split decision in September 2008. There are also rumors that Katsidis could be facing unbeaten Joan Guzman (29-0-1, 17 KO’s) on March 27th. That would be an interesting fight too. Guzman, 33, is ranked #4 in the International Boxing Federation and is coming off a majority draw against Ali Funeka in November.

Many boxing fans felt that Guzman should have lost that fight, and he should consider himself lucky that he got the draw. Guzman hasn’t been very active in the past three years, fighting only three times over that time period. At 33, Guzman needs to speed things up with his career and start getting busier. Still, he would be problems for Katsidis if they were to fight. Guzman has excellent boxing skills, and is hard to hit.

He would likely out-box Katsidis through much of the fight before tiring in the later rounds. I can see Guzman beating Katsidis by a close decision. It’s a winnable fight for Katsidis and probably a better match up for him than facing Diaz in a rematch. Diaz totally dominated Katsidis in their first fight, and I can’t see a rematch being anything different.

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