By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan can stop calling out Floyd Mayweather Jr., because Floyd gave him the path to a fight with him yesterday, telling ESPN “You’ve got a one guy from the UK by the name of Amir Khan. I’ve told him he can fight Floyd Mayweather, but he must go through Jessie Vargas first.”

Vargas, 22, just happens to fight for Mayweather Promotions, so it’s a smart move by Floyd to get Khan to fight his guy first. I like this. However, I doubt Khan will take the fight with the young Vargas even though it could lead to Khan getting what he wants – the cash out money fight against Mayweather.

The one problem with Khan facing Vargas is that Vargas can really punch, in particular with his left hand. He’s really quick with his left hook, and can throw it with devastating power in close or far away. He’s also pretty good at scraping on the inside, and is willing to grab his opponents around the neck like Khan often does to yank on them to get them out of position.

I think Vargas would be resistant to Khan’s tricks where he shoves his opponents’ head down to get them in a vulnerable position to tag them. Vargas has decent power in his right hand, and I could see him knocking Khan out if he lands it cleanly. The only thing I don’t like about Vargas is that he doesn’t his jab enough and has a low work rate. He’s got to be busier if he wants to beat Khan. You can’t let Khan get confidence because he’ll be all over you with his fast shots.

However, in looking at some of Vargas’ fights, he doesn’t like when he gets hit hard and tends to charge his opponents with knockout intentions. Vargas’ left hook so quick and so powerful that he often ends the fight as soon as he lands that shot.

Khan won’t fight this guy, no way. It doesn’t matter that it could potentially lead to Khan getting his big payday fight that he’s been carefully maneuvered for the last three years. Vargas is simply too dangerous, and I can’t see Golden Boy Promotions wanting to take that risk with their budding cash cow. There’s too many soft touches in the light welterweight and welterweight divisions that Khan can fight and get easy paydays against. You put Khan in with a young slugger like Vargas and the gravy train is over. If Khan gets knocked out again, you can probably forget about HBO showing his fights, and I doubt that even Sky would want to show him anymore unless he can come up with a good excuse like David Haye did for his loss to Wladimir Klitschko.

Khan and his promoters had been talking about wanting to fight the faded 35-year-old Erik Morales for a chance for Khan to pick up the WBC paper title. However, with Morales saying no to that idea and Lucas Matthysse likely to beat Morales anyway in their fight on September 17th, Khan is now said to be fighting his IBF mandatory challenger Lamont Peterson next instead of the hard hitting Matthysse. Vargas punches harder than Matthysse with his left hand, so no way do I see Vargas getting a fight with Khan no matter what it would lead to. Vargas isn’t an inside fighter like Marcos Maidana, meaning they can’t assign a referee that doesn’t permit inside fighting to give Khan an edge. Khan would have to actually beat the guy and I don’t think he can. Vargas hits too hard.