By William Mackay: In an interview of promoter Frank Warren at The Sun, he gives his thoughts about WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan not facing his mandatory defense against WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana. Warren, who up until recently promoted Khan and steered him to a championship against Andriy Kotelnik last year, says this when asked how he will feel if Khan ends up vacating his WBA light welterweight:

“I’ll be a little annoyed if I’m honest. If he’s [Khan] to drop it, he should have done it against [Dmitriy] Salita because that was a fight nobody thought would be hard for him. Maidana will be a much tougher position than Salita, so it will look like he’s running.” Warren is absolutely correct. If you look around on boxing forums, the news that Khan could end up sidestepping Maidana has been met with a lot of criticism from fans, who see it as a signal that Khan is avoiding the hard hitting Maidana.

Fans don’t like the idea of Khan avoiding this fight, even if he takes on a talented fighter like Juan Manuel Marquez. That’s a great substitute fight for Khan, but the problem is Marquez is a lightweight, smaller than Khan and much older than him at 36. Marquez is also coming off a one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September, a fight in which Marquez looked slow and heavy at 143. Marquez has fought mostly at featherweight during his long career, and seems more suited for that weight class and super featherweight rather than lightweight.

Khan is a light welterweight, and would have a big size advantage over Marquez.
Warren says “It just seems to be the people around him saying they don’t want Maidana. Freddie Roach pretty much said Maidana doesn’t mean anything and he needs to build himself up. But I find that quite a strange quote as Amir’s never been shown on American TV.”

Roach and Golden Boy Promotions don’t want to out Khan in with Maidana, saying they want to find a better known opponent than Maidana for Khan’s first fight in the United States. They want to make Khan a big star in the U.S. and feel that if they match him with more established fighters, albeit older ones, he can become a mega star within a short time.

“Maidana fighting Amir in American means nothing,” Warren says. “At least as far as the gates’ concerned. Over there [in the U.S.], it’s just an Argentinean fighting a Brit, whereas here [in the UK] it would sell. Not only that, I’d already spoken to HBO and they were willing to broadcast the fight. I’d also agreed to terms with Tim Bradley for a fight to take place over here and Showtime were going to show it in the States, so he [Khan] has choices already.”

Thus far, Bradley and Maidana aren’t being mentioned as future opponents for Khan now that he’s switched promoters. Marquez has been mentioned, as well as Zab Judah and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Marquez is reportedly mulling over whether to fight Khan or not. You can’t blame Marquez if he decides against fighting him. Marquez would be in effect being used to build Khan’s name up if he fights him. Marquez is still a champion and doesn’t need to be used in this manner. Marquez also could possibly fight Ricky Hatton, which obviously is a better option for him because Hatton’s more well known in the U.S.