By William Mackay: In a pick that makes you shake your head, Amir Khan is choosing the weak punching Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) to beat knockout artist Breidis Prescott (24-2, 19 KO’s) this Saturday night at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I think Khan is really hoping McCloskey can win this fight, because if Prescott wins it’s going to put a huge amount of pressure on Khan to fight a rematch with Prescott, and that’s something Khan really doesn’t want to do. Prescott is too dangerous and would wreck Khan’s money fight dream against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2012.

Khan defeated McCloskey with relative ease recently in a one-sided fight last April. Khan, in turn, was knocked out in the 1st round by Prescott three years ago, and hasn’t shown even a hint of desire of getting back in the ring with Prescott to try and avenge that loss. It doesn’t quite make sense that Khan is picking McCloskey when you look at those two fights.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking on Khan’s part, because if McCloskey is totally harmless because of his lack of power and hand speed. Not only is he a weak puncher, but his hand speed is incredibly slow for a light welterweight. There’s nothing about the guy that suggests he can beat a fighter like Prescott unless it’s by a controversial hometown decision, which is a distinct possibility because Prescott is traveling a long distance to take this fight in McCloskey’s home country.

This could come down to whether Prescott is able to knock McCloskey out or not. If he can’t get the knockout, Prescott may have to really put a whipping on McCloskey to walk away with the win. Hopefully, we don’t see any controversial decisions but it’s a possibility when you get a fighter like Prescott traveling all the way from Miami, Florida to take this fight.

Khan thinks that McCloskey won’t make the same kinds of errors that he made in getting flattened by Prescott in 2008. Khan really didn’t make any mistakes in the Prescott fight, however. Khan simply came out and was hit with a hard jab from Prescott and staggered from that shot. Prescott has arguably the hardest jab in the light welterweight division, and Khan wasn’t ready for it.

After staggering Khan with a jab, Prescott knocked him down with a hard left hook. Khan obviously wishes he had run instead of trying to briefly fight Prescott. However, Khan was only standing in front of Prescott for a couple of seconds when he was hit with the jab, and it’s something would have happened even if Khan had run.

The problem is Khan’s chin was too weak for the power from Prescott, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had run. Prescott was going to knock him out no matter what he did. I see the same thing happening with the weak-punching, slow handed McCloskey. Khan thinks McCloskey will be able to throw combinations against Prescott, pointing to the success that Kevin Mitchell had against Prescott back in 2009.

Mitchell, however, didn’t throw combinations in that fight. He jabbed, ran and threw single shots while fighting at home in the UK. Prescott didn’t jab back then and was looking to tear Mitchell’s head off with every shot, and ended up missing a lot of his punches.

Although Prescott ended up with a huge advantage in power shots landed in the fight compared to Mitchell, the judges gave the decision to Mitchell due to his higher amount of jabs landed. The punch stats were low because Mitchell ran the entire night. Had that fight taken place in the U.S, Prescott likely would have been given the decision because he landed the cleaner and harder shots, and Mitchell just had the advantage in jabs.