By Eric Thomas: World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan is looking at fighting former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) on May 15th. Khan had been linked with a fight against 36-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez. However, Marquez’s trainer Nacho Beristain gave an interview yesterday, saying that he didn’t want Marquez to take the fight against Khan because he didn’t want his fighter to be a “stepping stone” for Khan build a name for himself.
According to thesweetscience, Malignaggi confirmed that he had been contacted by Khan’s team and it’s looking like Malignaggi will be the replacement for Marquez in Khan’s debut fight in the United States. Malignaggi will take the fight unless he doesn’t get good offer. Malignaggi doesn’t want to be treated like an opponent, as he rightfully feels that he’s the name fighter in the U.S. and Khan is still mostly unknown to casual boxing fans here.
As it is, this is the perfect fight for Khan. Malignaggi has zero power, so there won’t be much of any danger that Malignaggi might connect with something big and knock Khan out. Khan’s promotional company Golden Boy Promotions wanted someone that would allow Khan to look good in winning.
Khan was supposed to be facing knockout artist Marcos Maidana, but Golden Boy has made a deal with Maidana to have him step aside for awhile to let Khan and himself get better known in the U.S. before they meet up and fight possibly in late 2010.
Hopefully, Khan doesn’t make a habit of fighting soft punchers like Malignaggi. Since moving up to the light welterweight division last year, Khan has been steered towards weaker punchers, beating Andriy Kotelnik, who held the WBA light welterweight title at the time that Khan fought him. Many people felt that Kotelnik was a paper champion.
In his first title defense, Khan defeated Dmitri Salita, his number #1 mandatory challenger. In hindsight, it seemed like a bad decision by the WBA to rank Salita as number #1 when he had taken on exclusively 2nd tier opponents during his career.
Marquez, a great fighter, would have had problems with Khan because of Amir’s size, and excellent hand speed. Marquez might have come out of a fight against Khan looking bad. However, Marquez, a small lightweight, deserves better than to be matched up continuously against fighters that are bigger than him. He looked terrible in losing a 12 round decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2009. Now Marquez can look to fighting someone in his own weight class where he won’t have to deal with a fighter towering over him.
Comments are closed.