By Scott Gilfoid: Former lightweight Silver medalist from the 2004 Olympic Games Amir Khan will be taking on Michael Gomez (35-8m 24 KOs) on June 21, at the NIA, in Birmingham, England. Though some people are calling this the stiffest test of the 21 year-old Khan’s three year professional career, many see it as otherwise, feeling that Gomez, 30, a former BBBofC British super featherweight champion, is well past his prime now and can offer up little resistance to the talented Khan. To be sure, Gomez has lost three out of his last six fights, with all three losses coming by knockout.

It would perhaps be excusable if they were all against top flight opposition, but the names Peter McDonagh (7-11) and Javier Osvaldo Alvarez would seem to suggest that Gomez has slipped a lot from his perch near the top of the British boxing scene that he held in 2003. Funny how much things change in five years. It was that long ago, in 2003, when Gomez pulled off the best victory of his career, a 5th round TKO of Alex Arthur. It was Gomez at his best, and he followed it up in the next year with a 6th round stoppage of the hard-punching Leva Kirakosyan. Unfortunately for Gomez, that was pretty much was the end of his good fortunes, for he would lose to the relatively known Osvaldo by a sixth round TKO in early 2005.

Things didn’t get much better in his next bout, either, as he was stopped by the aforementioned McDonagh in the 5th round , in January 2006. Following that, Gomez was matched carefully, pitting him with C-class fighters for which he was able to get a pair of easy wins in 2007, beating Daniel Thorpe and Youssef Al Hamidi. However, Gomez’s problems soon returned when he was stopped by Carl Johanneson in the 6th round in October 2007. As you can see, Gomez’s plight isn’t good going into his June 21st bout with the young Khan, with his career on the line and an almost zero chance of winning the fight.

The good thing, however, is that Gomez still has respectable power, enough perhaps to stop the weak-chinned Khan, who has proven to be susceptible to big hitters. If Khan goes into the fight in his usual all out style of fighting, he may run into something in his urgency to take Gomez out early. Khan has shown to have very little patience as a fighter and is far too preoccupied with scoring knockouts early in his fights. It’s hard to blame, naturally, because he’s been put in with the softest of opponents, virtually all 3rd tier opposition with little skills beyond that of a novice.

At 21, he’s still very young, and it’s understandable that he hasn’t been rushed for he would have big problems if he were forced to take on a lightweight champion like Nate Campbell, who would take all of Khan’s shots without problem and would fire back with big shots that Khan couldn’t take in return. In that regard, Gomez seems like a wise choice for Khan. He will give him a good taste of what it’s like to be hit by a more powerful puncher, although not as hard as Khan would be hit by someone like Campbell or a Michael Katsidis, mind you.

It will still be a good test for Khan, for he needs to start moving up against the more powerful hitters because he’s proven that he’s not getting much out of the easy opposition that has been served up to his thus far in his career.