By William Mackay: Former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi is picking IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) to beat challenger Lamont Peterson (29-1-1, 15 KO’s) on December 10th at the Convention Center, Washington, DC.

Malignaggi, 30, was beaten by Khan by an 11th round TKO loss last year in May, thinks Khan’s fighting style makes it difficult for his opponents to capture rounds against.

Malignaggi said this to esnewsreporting.com “I favor Amir [to beat Peterson]. Amir’s a tough style to win rounds against. He knows what he’s doing; he knows how to win rounds, especially the first time you see him. I think he beats Peterson.”

Welterweight Rashad Holloway also picks Khan to win, saying he’s got too much size for Peterson.

I disagree with Holloway about Khan having too much size. Khan is 5’10”, and Peterson is 5’9″, although he looks just as tall and his arms appear to be longer than Khan’s. The two fighters are roughly the same size as far as I can tell.

Malignaggi, 5’8″, didn’t have the frame or the height to compete with Khan last year and was dominated in their fight. However, Peterson does have the size and the power to compete. He’s just got to keep pressure on Khan and load up with everything. You have to hurt Khan and make him run. If Peterson doesn’t throw with power, Khan will beat him. A lot of boxing fans think Khan and his management have cherry picked Peterson over bigger punchers and much interesting fights against Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysse and Breidis Prescott. I kind of agree with them, but Peterson is about the best you can expect from Khan, so I’m good win it. At least it was Peterson, and not Paul McCloskey again. I think Peterson has a good chance of winning the fight if he takes the fight to Khan and throws with power.

Maligniaggi has a fight this weekend against Orlando Lora (28-1-1, 19 KO’s) on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson fight at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, Ca. Malignaggi should win this fight, as Lora is another 2nd tier opponent for Malignaggi to pad his record against.