By Matt Stein: World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) will be taking on his first real puncher in Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) since Khan was knocked out in the 1st round two years ago by Breidis Prescott. Although Khan has won his last five fights since that loss, it’s been against fighters with zero power and ones that were tailor made for Khan. After dragging his heels what seemed like forever, Khan has finally agreed to face the hard hitting Maidana.

It remains to be seen whether Khan’s chin can hold up under the heavy shots that Maidana will no doubt he hitting him with. In watching Maidana’s win over Victor Ortiz, it’s hard to imagine that Khan would be able to take even one round of power shots from Maidana if he connects like he did in the Ortiz fight. Most boing fans feel that Khan isn’t going to even try to exchange shots with Maidana and will instead opt to run for 12 rounds.

However, the chances of that working are slim, because Victor Cayo, a tough fighter, tried to run from Maidana and he was trapped against the ropes again and again throughout the fight. It could be that Maidana is the type of fighter that you can’t run from successfully. Khan’s best chance of winning is to try and fight him as best as he can and hope his chin doesn’t betray him once again.

I suspect it will. If Khan is knocked out by Maidana, Khan is going to have to make some major changes with his fighting style if he wants to find success and avoid getting knocked out again in the future. Golden Boy Promotions will likely began a long period of matching Khan up against ultra-soft opposition to give Khan time to evolve, lean, retool and adapt to a different style of fighting.

He won’t be able to continue to mix it up with opponents and will have to adopt a fighting style not unlike that of IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. Khan would have to add a lot of clinching to his game and figure other ways to limit the amount of times he’s hit in his fights. As far as an immediate rematch with Maidana, I don’t see that happening. In fact, I see Khan avoiding Maidana completely much in the same way that Khan has avoided fighting Breidis Prescott again.

At a later date, Khan can point out that there’s no reason to fight Maidana after gets beaten a couple of times. The excuse will be there. However, Khan will have to turn his career around somehow otherwise it will be a joke. He’ll have to get matched against the weaker punchers like the ones he’s been facing until he can somehow build his way back up to a fight against Devon Alexander or Timothy Bradley. It’s going to take a while, though, because they’re going to need to take it slow while Khan learns how to protect his weak chin better.