By William Mackay: Unlike most people who feel that IBF/WBO light welterweight champion Amir Khan would be in way over his head in a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr if they make this fight next year, Larry Merchant sees it as a potentially competitive fight.

Khan has speed and older fighters sometimes have problems with speed, Merchant points out in an interview at examiner.com. Mayweather is 34-years-old, but thus hasn’t shown any signs of having lost any of his hands speed thus far. What Merchant is saying applies to other fighters, but you can’t put that label on Mayweather until he actually is at that point where he’s struggling against faster guys.

“Speed is a serious problem for older fighters,” Merchant said at examiner.com. “I’m not saying it can’t be overcome and I’m not saying that beating [Zab] Judah is in the same class as beating some other guys here, but I think that Khan is a fighter to be reckoned with.”

Merchant goes on to say that Judah performed poorly in his recent 5th round TKO loss to Khan, and the outcome was “Totally predictable.” In that case, Khan’s management picked out a perfect fighter for Khan to look good against and give the appearance that Khan is better than he might be. Khan didn’t look especially good in taking a beating against Marcos Maidana, and looked very ordinary in missing all night long in his win over little known Paul McCloskey in April.

Yet boxing fans are ready to label Khan as a great fighter based on a win over an overly cautious frozen Judah. I don’t buy it. Khan fought a guy that didn’t want to fight and basically rolled over for him by not letting his hands go in the fight. I see the Khan win over Judah as a case of Khan beating a guy that didn’t want it. It’s not an indication of how good Khan is but rather how bad Judah is. I say put Khan back in with guys that can fight like Marcos Maidana and Breidis Prescott and lets see if Khan is for real. Merchant doesn’t think there is anyone in the division left for Khan to fight other than Timothy Bradley, who unavailable. Merchant totally overlooks Maidana, Prescott and Robert Guerrero for some reason.

Mayweather will destroy Khan when this fight gets made and people will understand how wrong they were to hype Khan.