By Dan Ambrose: ESPN writer Dan Rafael is reporting that Golden Boy Promotions is looking to put together a fight between light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz and former lightweight champion Nate Campbell for a bout that would take place on May 15th. The idea here is to put the Campbell-Ortiz fight on the undercard of a light welterweight bout between 36-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez and World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan.

For the Campbell-Ortiz bout to take place, the 23-year-old Ortiz will have to get by his next opponent Hector Alatorre on February 25th. Ortiz, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, is trying to rebound from a 6th round stoppage loss last year in June against hard hitting Argentinean Marcos Maidana. If this card can be put together, it would seem an odd one in that it matches two older fighters in the 37-year-old Campbell and 36-year-old Marquez being put in against young Golden Boy fighters Ortiz and Khan.

Putting young relatively unknown fighters against older better known ones has become the quick – and safe – way for promoters to get a name for their fighters without the risk of putting them in against a contender than might actually beat them. As we saw with Ortiz, he failed miserably when he was put in with Maidana and it looks like they don’t want to take chances by matching him too hard again.

Campbell was an excellent lightweight, but since moving up to light welterweight, he didn’t look nearly as impressive in his last fight, a 3 round no contest against Timothy Bradley. That fight may have been just a fluke, but if Campbell ends up struggling against Ortiz, he may need to consider trying to somehow move back down to lightweight if he can still make the weight class.

Ortiz, 5’9”, will have a two inch height advantage over Campbell and likely a considerable speed and power advantage as well. Campbell was a good puncher at lightweight, but he doesn’t look nearly as powerful at light welterweight.

As for Khan, Golden Boy is counting on a win over the great Marquez as making a name for Amir. It’s unfortunate that they don’t want to match Khan up against WBA light welterweight interim champion Maidana, who the WBA has ordered Khan to fight. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says that he wants to have Maidana get more exposure in the United States before matching him and Khan up against each other.

However, some people don’t buy that, and think that Khan is being kept purposely away from Maidana because of the very real potential that Maidana could knock Khan out. Khan was already destroyed in one brutal round when he attempted to go up against another big puncher in Breidis Prescott in 2008. While some people say that Khan’s chin has improved since he moved up in weight last year to the light welterweight division, there’s no way of testing that theory because Khan hasn’t faced any big punchers since being knocked out by Prescott.

It’s still unknown if Marquez will even take the fight with Khan. Nothing has been confirmed with this fight yet. From the looks of it, Marquez appears to be serving as the trial horse for Khan and that seems rather strange because Marquez is still a champion, is much better known than the British fighter, and Khan is someone who may never pan out. He already failed in his one test against a big puncher. He could fail again once he’s put in with someone that can punch with any power.

There are many boxing fans who feel that Khan could end up being exposed again when/if he finally is matched up against a good fighter like Maidana, Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander, Kendall Holt, Ortiz or Ricardo Torres, to name just a few of the fighters in the light welterweight division that could potentially give Khan troubles. Schaefer recently mentioned wanting to match Khan against the following fighters in order: Marquez, Zab Judah and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

If Khan was to take those fights, he could potentially make a ton of money before facing other threats in the division. In doing so, if Khan ends up getting exposed again and again by those fighters later on, it won’t matter anymore because Khan will have made a ton of money in fights against Marquez, Judah and Mayweather.