By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan is talking about moving up in weight almost immediately if he doesn’t get a rematch with Lamont Peterson, who took Khan’s IBF and WBA light welterweight straps with a close 12 round decision over him last month on December 10th.

Khan wants to move up to take on the so-called bigger names in the sport. What he’s talking about here is Floyd Mayweather Jr., because that’s the only real name other than Khan’s buddy Manny Pacquiao that you could consider a big name. The other top fighters – Shane Mosley, Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto – aren’t hugely popular. They’re good names but not mega stars or anything like that.

Khan can obviously beat Mosley, 40, at this point in Shane’s career but it won’t mean anything for Khan because I think even the casual fans are aware by now of how faded Mosley is. There’s really no point in Khan moving up in weight at all, period, unless he can get a promise from Mayweather Jr. to fight him. Short of that, Khan has no business fighting above 147 because the fighters are stronger at this weight and his power won’t be as impressive at this weight as it was at 140.

The only way I can see Khan doing well at 147 is if Golden Boy Promotions decides to match him against exclusively weak opposition for a year or two while he waits to see if Mayweather will fight him. If Khan is put in with Victor Ortiz, Andre Berto or Mike Jones, he’ll be knocked out by all three of them. They can all punch and are at pressuring fighters. Khan would have been knocked out in his last fight against Peterson if the guy had any power but he was perfect for Khan in that he couldn’t really punch. However, Khan was badly worried in the Peterson fight and was forced to run and foul because he couldn’t handle the pressure from him.

Here are the fighters that Khan MUST be matched up with at welterweight for him to succeed until when/if Mayweather agrees to fight him:

• Shane Mosley
• Paulie Malignaggi
• Vyacheslav Senchenko
• Matthew Hatton
• Brad Solomon
• Carlos Quintana
• Carson Jones
• Shawn Porter
• Omar Chavez
• Said Ouali
• Ionut Dan Ion
• Jan Zaveck
• Rafal Jackiwicz

Here are the fighters that Khan MUST avoid at all costs if he wants to someday fight Mayweather:

• Andre Berto
• Victor Ortiz
• Thomas Dulorme
• Mike Jones
• Marcos Maidana – too dangerous unless a referee is working that keeps Maidana off of Khan
• Randall Bailey
• Devon Alexander
• Selcuk Aydin
• Kell Brook