By William Mackay: The chances of a unification fight between WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley and IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan aren’t good for 2012, says Oscar De La Hoya, the promoter for Khan.

De La Hoya says wants to make the fight, but he doubts that Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum will be interested in making the fight.

Khan told mydesert.com “We would definitely love [to match Khan vs. Bradley] and Amir Khan wants to fight the best. The truth here is will Bob Arum want it? That’s the question and that’s been the stumbling block. Bob Arum doesn’t want to make the fights. We’re open to any fights.”

I don’t really buy this as being purely an Arum problem. If De La Hoya was really open to making the great fights for his guys like Khan, then why the matching of Khan against little known and light hitting Paul McCloskey, and why match Khan against the light hitting Lamont Peterson?

The boxing public would much prefer to see Khan face Marcos Maidana again or even Breidis Prescott for that matter. Why put Khan in with guys that can’t punch if you’re interested in making the great fights? I have no doubts that De La Hoya wants to make the Bradley-Khan fight, but Bradley can’t punch either, so this is a no-brainer for De La Hoya and Khan.

I just don’t see Arum as being the one that’s always getting in the way of big fights. Why is De La Hoya matching WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez against guys like Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and bottom ranked Kermit Cintron rather than arguably better fighters like James Kirkland, Austin Trout, Vanes Martirosyan, Erislandy Lara, Carlos Molina, Alfredo Angulo or Sergiy Dzinziruk?

Khan says he’ll move up to the welterweight division if he doesn’t get the Bradley fight next. Well, I think Khan better move up in weight because Bradley is being groomed to fight Manny Pacquiao, and he won’t be fighting Khan. Arum isn’t going to risk having Bradley beaten before he cashes him out against Pacquiao.