By Chris Williams: Lightweight Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KOs) will have to wait an additional three weeks to get a shot at World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Andreas Kotelnik (31-2-1, 13 KOs) who because of a nasty infection of one of his teeth can’t fight until July 18th. The delay will make it necessary for the fight to be held at the MEN Arena instead of the O2 Arena because singer Michael Jackson has a scheduled date to sing on June 27th.

The good news is that Khan won’t have to wait all that long for his fight with Kotelnik. That bad thing about it is that it probably won’t matter how much additional training that Khan gets from his legendary trainer Freddie Roach, because Khan will likely be in deep trouble regardless of what plan of attack that Roach dreams up for him in this fight.

Most of the stuff that Roach came up for Manny Pacquiao in his victories against Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya were simple stuff, like throw right hooks use and in and out attacks. In other words, pretty much the kind of things that Pacquiao would have done without Roach as a trainer.

In both cases, Pacquiao was just the superior fighter and would have likely beaten Hatton and De La Hoya senseless no matter what strategy Pacquiao had used in the two fights. It’s obvious that Khan will be trying to use jabs to fight on the outside and will be looking to pick his spots to throw short two and three punch combinations.

Roach won’t want Khan to stay near Kotelnik for any length of time knowing that if Khan stays too close to the Ukrainian that there would be an increased chance that Khan would get hit with something on his brittle jaw and get knocked down or knocked out. Kotelnik isn’t a big puncher, but he has knockout victories over Gavin Rees and William Gonzalez, and I consider both of them to have better chins than Khan.

The short of it is if Khan tries to trade with Kotelnik for any length of time, Khan will likely get caught with something big and knocked out. He’s not rugged enough to stand and trade with a sturdy light welterweight like Kotelnik and will end up getting stretched out on the canvas if he makes this mistake.

Timothy Bradley vs. Nate Campbell on August 1st

WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (24-0, 11 KOs) will be defending his title on August 1st against former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion Nate Campbell (33-5-1, 25 KOs) at a still to be determined location. Bradley, 25, recently vacated his WBC lightweight title rather than defend it against the little known Devon Alexander.

Campbell, for his part, opted to move up in weight after losing his titles on the scale before his bout with Ali Funeka in February. At 37, Campbell was finding it too hard to get down to the lightweight limit. Campbell struggled to defeat Funeka by a 12 round majority decision.

Bradley defeated World Boxing Organization lightweight champion Kendall Holt by a narrow 12 round decision in April.

Bradley would have to be considered the favorite in this fight because of his youth, work rate and hand speed. Campbell is moving up in weight and will likely have less power at this weight class than he did as a lightweight. Bradley has an excellent chin and probably won’t be bothered by Campbell’s shots.

Bradley can be hurt at times as evidenced by his knockdown by Holt, but that seemed to be more of a case of Bradley being hit by a blinding punch that he never saw coming. Campbell is much slower than Holt and it’s doubtful that he’ll be able to catch Bradley with a shot that he doesn’t see coming.

As such, look for Bradley to win this by a 12 round decision with too many problems. Campbell is a good fighter and probably good enough to easily be the likes of Andriy Kotelnik and Amir Khan, but I think Campbell has bit off a little more than he can chew by choosing Bradley as his opponent for his first fight in the light welterweight division.