By Sean McDaniel: World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan will be fighting on the undercard of the fight between 40-year-olds Bernard Hopkins vs. Roy Jones Jr. on April 17th, according to news. Khan will either be facing WBA interim champion Marcos Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s), a knockout artist from Argentina and who boxing fans wants to see Khan fight, or Khan could be facing former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi.

There are rumors that Maidana will permit Khan to take an interim fight before he faces Khan. If this turns out to be the case, there would likely be a step aside fee given to Maidana for him to sit and wait for Khan to fight. Maidana gains nothing by waiting and could lose out on a big payday if Khan ends up losing his next fight. With Khan’s shaky chin, he’s in danger of being beaten by anyone if they connect to his chin with a hard enough shot.

Khan recently signed with Golden Boy Promotions after having been promoted his entire five year pro career by Frank Warren. Khan hopes to become a big star in the United States and Golden Boy Promotions, with their connections to HBO, would seem to be the promotional company that could make this possible.

Khan defeated WBA champion Andriy Kotelnik by a 12 round decision in July 2009 to capture the WBA belt. Khan has defended the title once with a 1st round knockout win over badly overmatched Dmitriy Salita in December. Khan’s career was thought to be on the brink of failure after he suffered a brutal 1st round knockout loss to Colombian Breidis Prescott in September 2008. Khan has bounced back from that devastating defeat, beating four consecutive opponents. However, none of Khan’s opposition since his Prescott defeat has big what you would consider to be a big puncher. This is why some boxing fans predicted that Khan would vacate his title rather than face Maidana, a puncher with power equal to or greater than Prescott.

If I were to guess who Khan’s next opponent will be, I would assume that it will be Malignaggi rather than the hard punching Maidana. Malignaggi is a much weaker puncher and isn’t much of a threat to knock Khan out, unlike Maidana who would be a constant threat to knock Khan out for as long as the fight lasts.