By Sean McDaniel: After defeating challenger Barry Morrison (18-5, 8 KO’s) on Saturday night by a 7th round stoppage, European Boxing Union (EBU) light welterweight champion Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) called out WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) for a bout. However, the 31-year-old McCloskey would likely have almost next to no chance at beating Khan if McCloskey was even able to get the fight with him.

McCloskey looked too painfully slow against Morrison to even compete with a fighter like Khan. And McCloskey doesn’t have good power, so he would be able to fall back on that to try and beat Khan by stoppage. McCloskey is really slow in terms of hand speed, and he makes it worse for himself by fighting with his hands down by his sides. Because of his bad habit of fighting with his hands down, McCloskey tends to get hit a lot in his fights, which was the case against Morrison on Saturday night. Right now, McCloskey can get away with getting hit a lot because he’s only fighting on the European level. But if he were to fight a fast puncher like Khan, McCloskey would be riddled to pieces by Khan’s fast and much more powerful shots. There’s a lot a lot of other light welterweights in the top 15 that would likely beat McCloskey as well if he were to fight them instead of the mostly UK based fighters.

I doubt that Khan would ever waste his time fighting McCloskey, because he’s not ranked high enough to bother worrying about him, and he’s not a particularly popular fighter at this point in his career. McCloskey is ranked number #4 by the WBC, meaning that if he keeps winning, he could get a title shot against IBF/WBC light welterweight champion Devon Alexander.

It’s unclear whether Alexander will still be champion for that much longer if he goes ahead and faces Timothy Bradley in the near future. However, either one of those guys would give McCloskey a massive amount of problems due to their hand speed and better power. But those guys would seem like a more realistic option for McCloskey right now until he’s ranked high enough to force the issue with Khan.