By William Mackay: Amir Khan, the WBA light welterweight champion, doesn’t see himself fighting World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in the future because of how long it will take for him to get up to Pacquiao’s level. In an interview at the Sportinglife, Khan said “But as for fighting him in the future, I can’t really see that happening because I’m sure by the time I get to that level he will probably be calling it a day.”

Indeed, Khan is only 22-years-old and doesn’t appear to be fighting at the level needed for him to compete effectively against a fighter in the class of Pacquiao. Boxing fans saw last weekend a total mismatch between Miguel Cotto and Pacquiao, a fight which was dominated entirely by Pacquiao for 11 rounds until he finally put Cotto out of his misery in the 12th round.

Khan would be lucky to make it four or five rounds against Cotto, much less against the talented Pacquiao. Still, a fight between Khan and Pacquiao would be huge, at least in the UK, and it’s more than a little disappointing that Khan isn’t interested in taking a fight like this. Khan trains with Pacquiao from time to time at the Wild Card gym with their mutual trainer Freddie Roach.

Khan has even sparred with Pacquiao from time to time, and has look quite good during the sparring sessions. Pacquiao looked like he wasn’t going all out during the sparring sessions I’ve seen, but Khan still looked quite good against him.

Although Khan talks about wanting to wait on a fight against Pacquiao until he gets up to that level, there’s questions as to whether Khan will ever get close to the level of Pacquiao. Khan has seemed to have problems with his chin and there are big question marks about whether he has the chin to get to the next level.

Right now, Khan may hold down the WBA light welterweight title, but that doesn’t mean whole lot because Khan captured the title with a 12 round decision over Andriy Kotelnik, a fighter but not a fighter in the class of Pacquiao or even Cotto. Khan will be defending the strap on December 5th against unbeaten Dimitri Salita.

However, that’s not the kind of opponent that will tell us much about Khan’s talent or his chin. Khan will have to take a step up in competition and face fighters like Marcos Maidana, Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley before we discover whether Khan has the talent to compete with the likes of Pacquiao.

However, it remains to be seen whether Khan will be put in with any of those aforementioned fighters after the Salita fight. Khan will have a voluntary defense coming up after the Salita fight and it’s hard to imagine seeing him put in with anyone other than a bottom 15 ranked opponent.

“We [Pacquiao] train in the same camp and I’ve got too much respect for Manny to fight him,” Khan says. That doesn’t exactly sound promising like Khan is interested in fighting Pacquiao in the future.