By Scott Gilfoid: It’s looking like WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan is going to sidestep around World Boxing Association interim champion Marcos Maidana and take a safer fight against Paulie Malignaggi. Although this hasn’t been officially confirmed as of yet, it’s looking that’s what the case may. We have various reports that Khan will go after Malignaggi instead. This is really sad if Khan doesn’t fight Maidana. I had a feeling that this was going to happen.

The word going around is that Khan has signed a contract with Golden Boy Promotions. Malignaggi would be the first fight for Khan in the United States. After that, you can only guess who Amir will fight. I would expect for Khan to continue to be matched softly while they build him up in winnable fights for him against opponents without much power.

I’m just wondering what the reaction will be by American boxing fans. Khan looks flashy when he’s fighting, but then again Khan isn’t being put in with any big punchers since being knocked out in 2008 by Breidis Prescott. if Khan is pitted with a bunch of Malignaggi types one after another, someone is going notice after awhile, don’t you think? Maybe not. We have a lot of fans who don’t anything about the sport.

Khan’s management will have to be careful with him, because if he plans on staying at light welterweight, he’ll always be in danger of being sparked out by someone if they can get to his chin. Khan won’t have to worry much about getting hurt by Malignaggi, because he doesn’t have the power to hurt him unless Khan trips and falls into one of Malignaggi’s gloves.

If Khan does decide to bypass Maidana and vacate his title, then all I can say is that I’ve really lost respect for Amir. I was starting to think he was a good fighter, but if he vacates rather than face Maidana, then forget it. I don’t know what they’ll achieving by steering around Maidana. I suppose you can put Khan in with a slew of soft opponents that make him look like a second coming of Oscar De La Hoya, but sooner or later his management will have to Khan in with a fighter who can punch a little.

And when that times comes, I think we’ll be right back where we started from with Khan having to find a way to stay upright somehow. Financially, it pays for them to keep Khan away from the dangerous fighters, because they can really milk him for all he’s worth if HBO is on board with having Khan face soft opponents for a couple of years, but I kind of doubt they will.

They’ll expect to see Khan face a live body like Timothy Bradley, Maidana or Devon Alexander, and I think Khan would lose to all of those guys this year and forever after. But the magic is if they can somehow keep him in soft for as long as possible, it may pay off down the road if they can get Khan into a mega fight with a big star. They’ll have to do a good job of matching Khan carefully to build up his credentials in the U.S. so that he can make people believe in him.

The good news is that casual fans don’t have clue one about boxing, so they may not have to put Khan in with anyone dangerous until he’s become a star always. I don’t know who they could put Khan in with besides Malignaggi. He already beat a faded Marco Antonio Barrera. Well, maybe they can get Erik Morales to come out of retirement and Khan can pick up a win against him.