By Dave Lahr: In looking at the three fights that WBA light middleweight champion Andriy Kotelnik 31-2-1, 13 KOs) has had in the UK, it’s safe to say that he’s had fairly rotten luck in winning a decision over there. Indeed, of the three times that Kotelnik has fought over there, he’s lost by a close 12-round decision to Junior Witter four years ago in July 2005, fought to a 12-round draw with Souleymane M’baye in March 2007, and then won by a 12th round knockout over Gavin Rees last year in March 2008.

Who knows what would have happened in that fight had the bout gone to the cards. Having seen both of the decisions, I thought that Kotelnik should have been given the win in both circumstances without a doubt.

However, like a lot of foreign fighters when traveling to a different country to fight, it often takes more an extra effort to get a win in a foreign land with their hometown fighter. Places like Germany and Italy spring to mind when I think of visiting fighters ending up on the receiving end of a questionable decision.

England obviously has its fair share of dubious decisions, for example the recent fight between Ireland’s Martin Rogan and Sam Sexton.

Kotelnik, 31, is concerned about whether he’ll get a fair decision if it goes to the cards because of his two prior bad experiences in fighting in England, and feels that he’ll need to fight “three times stronger” than the local fighter, challenger Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KOs) in their June 27th bout at the O2 Arena, in Greenwich, London.

While Kotelnik may have had some bad decisions in the past while fighting in England, it doesn’t appear to be centered entirely on him as a fighter, but rather the typical thing kind of thing that happens when a fighter travels to another country to fight.

The judges are probably unaware that they’re leaning in the opposite direction of Kotelnik. It just naturally happens. Then good thing is that Kotelnik has going for him in his fight against Khan is that Amir has a weak chin, which makes it much less doubtful that the fight will even go down to a decision.

All Kotelnik needs to do is make sure he hits Khan enough times to expose his naturally weak chin and the rest should fall into place from there without Kotelnik even needing to worry about the judges in this fight. Khan has already been hurt and knocked down by a handful of his opponents in his short pro career and badly knocked out last year by Colombian Breidis Prescott in the 1st round.

Most of Khan’s competition has been poor, B class opponents at best. Kotelnik isn’t known for being a hard hitter, but he’s bigger in terms of weight than any fighter that Khan has fought up till this point in his career and better than all of them except for possibly Prescott.

This could be a fight where Khan’s history of taking on easy opponents rears up and bites him in the backside because Kotelnik is much better than the typical fodder that has been thrown to Khan for the past four years of his pro career.