By William Mackay: Not only does World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) want to fight the winner of the lightweight clash between WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz on July 31st, but it now looks like Khan wants that fight to take place in his home country of England. That obviously would give Khan a huge advantage. Khan would already have a big advantage in size, reach, height, youth and hand speed over the two small lightweights.

But when you add in that Khan would be fighting in front of a home crowd, it would likely be asking a lot of either the soon to be 37-year-old Marquez and/or Diaz to be able to win a decision over there with all those advantages that Khan would have. We already saw Khan beat 36-year-old lightweight Marco Antonio Barrera last year in Manchester, England, in a fight where Barrera sustained a terrible gash on his forehead from a 1st round headbutt.

Instead of stopping the fight and ruling it a no contest, the bout was allowed to go on until the 5th round, when it was finally stopped due to the blood that was pouring into Barrera’s eyes, preventing him from seeing properly. It was the same got, no worse than before, that had originally opened in the 1st round.

“I’m looking at fighting in Vegas or England,” Khan said in an article at Thesun.co.uk. “I want to fight the winner of the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz bout. That is very much on the cards.” Why should a great fighter like Marquez have to move up in weight, and then travel all the way to England to fight someone like Khan, who has only a handful of experience at the pro level against top tier opponents?

Shouldn’t Khan be fighting someone in his own weight division, preferably WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) or Devon Alexander? Why not either of those guys? Why not Timothy Bradley or Victor Ortiz. I’d much rather see Khan face those guys than dragging an old lightweight halfway across the world to fight him in front of Khan’s home audience. What makes it even more off putting is that Marquez has been a great fighter for over a decade now,winning three titles in the featherweight division, another title in the super featherweight division and finally two titles at lightweight.

Whereas Khan hasn’t even taken on the best fighters in his own division, and is looking to fight lightweights instead. By going after lightweights, it looks by appearances, like Khan, or his promoters, is cherry picking beatable opponents in order to make a name the easy way. I wouldn’t mind Khan dragging one of the top light welterweights all the way to England, if they were willing to go along with it, or Breidis Prescott. But to take on an old Marquez or a fighter like Diaz, who has lost three out of his last five fights, it just looks bad.

Khan said he wants to be a star in the U.S., yet he’s looking to fight older lightweights in England. He already took on the light hitting Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight in May instead of taking on the slugger Maidana. Supposedly, Khan was then going to start fighting the big names in the light welterweight division. What we’re getting instead is Khan looking to fight a lightweight at home.