By Jim Dower: After seeing how easily Victor Ortiz was beaten by Marco Maidana last weekend, lightweight Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KO’s) is now reportedly wary of World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik (31-2, 13 KO‘s).

It’s for a good reason that Khan appears to have some new found respect for Kotelnik, because the Ukrainian fighter not only took Maidana’s biggest shots in his fight with Maidana in February 2009, but succeeded in beating the Argentinean by a 12-round split decision in the process.

Never mind that many boxing fans and writers alike felt that Kotelnik got a hometown decision in his adopted country and Germany, where the fight took place, Kotelnik was still able to take Maidana’s biggest shots without going down or getting hurt and was able to fight him very close.

On July 18th at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England, Khan is going to have to hope that he can somehow do what Maidana could not by trying to take him out, because if this fight goes a full 12-rounds, it’s questionable whether Khan’s chin will hold out for that long.

“Maidana’s win at the weekend shows you just how good Kotelnik is,” Khan said recently. Amir notes that he’ll have to come up with a good plan if he’s going to stop Kotelnik, because of his good chin. However, Khan says that he’s motivated for the fight instead of afraid of Kotelnik. He said that he started “working twice as hard with Freddie [Roach] the next day” after seeing the Maidana-Ortiz fight.

With only two weeks to go before the fight let’s hope that Khan has done enough hard work earlier in his training, because he’s going to need it if he plans on taking away Kotelnik’s title. Khan says that his mind is totally on Kotelnik, and he isn’t looking into the future at other options right now.

That’s nice to know, because if he overlooks Kotelnik he’ll likely be sorry for it. Khan is taking a big step up in competition in facing the 31-year-old Kotelnik. Most of Khan’s prior competition has been lacking in talent since he turned pro, so he’s going to have to be extra careful with Kotelnik, because he’s a lot better than any other fighter that Khan has faced thus far.

Roy Jones Jr. vs. Jeff Lacy on August 15th

Aging former light heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. (53-5, 39 KO’s) will be facing former IBF super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy on August 15th at the Gulf Coast Arena, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Jones, 40, a four division champion, is keeping busy his career despite the fact that he’s no longer championship material. Rather than hang up his gloves like many boxing fans are advising him to do, Jones is working on taking on softer opponents like Jeff Lacy, Omar Sheika and Felix Trinidad in the past couple of years.

Although Lacy is still ranked at number #5 in the IBF and #8 by the World Boxing Council, he hasn’t looked good in four years since injuring his left shoulder in a fight with Vitali Tsypko. Lacy’s best asset was his left hook, which made him a dangerous fighter for pretty much anyone in boxing except for Joe Calzaghe.

However, Lacy’s shoulder has been slow in healing since his surgery in 2006, and there are questions as to whether it will ever be the same. While Lacy might be better off if he were to concentrate on tying to move up against better fighters in the rankings in the super middleweight division, it’s probably not feasible for Lacy to fight the likes of Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Librado Andrade, Edison Miranda or Sakio Bika right now, because any of those fighters would be a very tough fight for Lacy to win at this point in his career