Khan: “Malignaggi is a big possibility”

By William Mackay: It’s still unclear who World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) will select for his next fight on April 17th. The WBA wants Khan to defend his title against WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s). However, Khan’s new promotional company Golden Boy Promotions, including his trainer Freddie Roach, prefers that Khan goes after a bigger name for his U.S. debut fight, someone like Paulie Malignaggi, Juan Diaz or Juan Manuel Marquez.

In an article with Manchester Evening News, Khan said “Malignaggi is a big possibility. That would be a big fight for me to break into the States.” Khan may be overestimating the popularity of Malignaggi, because a fight against him wouldn’t likely be close to being a “big fight” in the United States, if you ask me.

It might be a mildly interesting one to see for some boxing fans, because it matches two fighters that move a lot instead of two sluggers. However, if Khan takes a fight against Malignaggi, he could end up alienating fan, who might see Khan as avoiding the hard hitting Maidana. Khan has a reputation with some fans as having a weak chin.

This wasn’t helped by his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008. Khan has taken on exclusively light punchers since that loss. A fight against Maidana would have been Khan’s chance to prove that his loss to Prescott was a fluke, and that he can take a big shot from a big puncher without folding. If Khan chooses Malignaggi or the smaller Marquez and Diaz, it will still leave questions that need to be answered about Khan’s chin.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer wants to put Maidana on the undercard of Khan’s next fight in an effort to build up a future fight with Khan instead of putting the two fighters together immediately. The theory here is to build up the names of both Khan and Maidana in the U.S. to create a bigger money fight in the future.

Maidana already has made a name for himself with boxing fans with his 6th round stoppage win over Victor Ortiz last year. Although Maidana can certainly stand to have more visibility in the U.S., but he would be getting exactly that if Khan would fight him. Instead, Khan would have a fight against Maidana or someone else, and Maidana would likely get an unknown opponent. I see this as benefiting Khan but not doing much for Maidana.