By William Mackay: Amir Khan (26-3, 18 KO’s) meets Carlos Molina (17-0, 7 KO’s) next month on December 15th in a fight that is extremely critical for Khan’s career, as he’s in a position where he can’t take any more losses. Khan’s ability to take punishment is in question and for him to be one of the top fighters in boxing he’s going to have to be able to stand in there and take some healthy shots.

Molina, 5’6″, isn’t a real threat to Khan on paper, but then again we didn’t think Khan was going to turn to resort to running, holding and shoving from the pressure that was put on him in his fight with Lamont Peterson either. Molina hits at least as hard as Peterson if not harder.

Khan is doing all the right things by changing trainers and focusing more on developing his defensive skills following his two losses to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia, but it might be enough. It could be that Khan has waited too long to start working on his defensive skills and it may not be in time to keep him from suffering additional losses.

At this point Khan may not be able to take anymore defeats without being dropped from the top 15, and once that happens I think we might see him dropped by Showtime in the U.S, as well as not having his fights televised in the UK. It’s bad enough that he’s suffered two straight losses but three straight defeats is going to be hard for him to come back from.

Khan won’t retire if he loses to Molina, that’s for sure. However, he might want to consider doing it because a loss to Molina will pretty much tell you that Khan doesn’t have the chin to compete at the highest levels at light welterweight. Molina isn’t even a light welterweight, so losing to him will be even worse. This is supposed to be a gimme fight for Khan, but if he can’t even beat Molina then it’s probably best that Khan hang up the gloves and not waste his time because it’s probably going to be all downhill from there.

The way Khan was knocked out last July by Danny Garcia leaves you with the wonder whether Khan’s chin will ever be the same again. A knockout loss like that is something that could cause Khan problems for a lot longer than just five months and hopefully for his sake his ability to take shots hasn’t been decreased from that experience.