By William Mackay: Lightweight Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KO’s) is up in arms about the trash talking that World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight Andriy Kotelnik has been doing and is upset enough to uncharacteristically fire back at Kotelnik, promising him to give him a “boxing lesson” in the ring come July 18th in their bout at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England.

Apparently, Khan doesn’t like the comments that Kotelnik has been hurling at him in which Kotelnik refers to his young age and lack of experience in the ring, calling Khan a “kid.” Khan is responding by saying that he will “be the teacher” in the ring and will give Kotelnik a lot of problems.

Kotelnik, however, isn’t impressed with Khan’s lack of experience against top level opposition coming into this fight, pointing out that Khan has fought only two decent opponents – Marco Antonio Barrera and Breidis Prescott – and one of the two (Prescott) knocked him out in the 1st round and the other one was far from his prime at the time that Khan chose to fight him.

Kotelnik says he will knock Khan out in the same fashion that Prescott did, something that really seems to have upset Khan a great deal. Khan responded that the fight with Prescott was a “mistake” and that Amir has improved his defensive skills since that fight.

That remains to be seen. Khan says that Kotelnik will have to be able to hit him on his chin if he wants to try and knock him out, and he doesn’t believe that Kotelnik will be able to land any of his shots, hinting at what his game plan will be. Khan is expected to be moving a lot in their fight to prevent Kotelnik from landing his shots.

Although Kotelnik isn’t much of a puncher, he hits hard enough to give Khan problems if he can find his chin enough times. It probably won’t be easy because Khan looked like a completely different fighter in the five rounds of his bout with Barrera in March.

Khan stayed on the move through most of the fight and only sometimes stopped to trade shots with Barrera. Kotelnik looked plenty tough in his last fight, a 12 round split decision victory over Marcos Maidana in February. Kotelnik took Maidana’s biggest shots and beat him at his own game by out-slugging him. Khan doesn’t hit as hard as Maidana, so he’ll have to come up with another way of beating Kotelnik. Movement appears to be Khan’s only way of winning.

Khan is saying that the move up to 140 will make him a stronger fighter. However, his strength was never the issue with him. His chin was his problem and unless Khan’s chin has improved since he was knocked out by Prescott last year and staggered in the 2nd round by Barrera, this fight may end with Khan being knocked out once again.

Khan has youth on his side at 22 compared to the 31-year-old Kotelnik. However, Kotelnik is in the prime of his career whereas Khan is still developing as a fighter. Khan has the physical tools to win, but he needs to avoid the mistakes that he made in the Prescott fight if he has a chance of winning.