By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) is technically the World Boxing Association champion while knockout artist Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) is the WBA interim light welterweight champion.

However, in this case I think the better fighter is the interim champion Maidana rather than Khan, a fighter with a weak chin whose management team aren’t in any hurry to put him in with the hard hitting Maidana. It’s not hard to see why. Maidana seems to be a much more rugged fighter with more power and a much sturdier chin than Khan.

Maidana doesn’t have the hand speed, movement or the defensive ability that Khan possesses, but he seems to more than make up for it with his aggressive fighting style and his big power. What makes Maidana so good is his ability to walk though big shots to get to his opponents and unload on them with his powerful shot. Maidana basically breaks his opponents down with one big clubbing shot after another.

They can take some of them but after four to six rounds, Maidana wears out his opposition and ends up taking them out. Khan may be the full WBA champion as of now, but I don’t see him as the real champion in that division and I think I’m not the only one. Maidana is probably too big of a puncher and too rugged for Khan to stand up to him for more than three or four rounds at best. Maidana looked devastating in taking out Victor Cayo and Victor Ortiz, two excellent fighters. Both of those guys tried to stand up to Maidana and fight him but it was useless.

Maidana broke them down with huge shots to the head and body to take them out. Ortiz landed some monstrous shots to the chin of Maidana and knocked him down three times in the fight. I think Khan would have been buried if he was hit with the shots that Ortiz landed against Maidana. Ortiz is a real good puncher. I don’t know if he gets a lot of credit for it, but he landed some shots on Maidana that would have stopped most fighters in the division.

Maidana got up off the deck and wore Ortiz down with massive right hands and left hooks. Ortiz, Cayo and Maidana are the kinds of fighters that Khan is going to have to be able to tangle with if he wants to be considered the best fighter in the WBA. I’m not even talking about light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander.

Those guys would be a huge test for Khan to deal with, but I’d like to see how Khan would do against Cayo, Maidana and Ortiz before he’s thrown in with skilled fighters like Bradley and Alexander. I think Khan would lose to all of them by knockout. Khan could surprise me if his chin has improved like some people think it has, but until he starts actually fighting the tougher fighters in the light welterweight division, I can’t tell. All I know is that Khan has had major problems when he was put in with a big puncher Breidis Prescott in 2008, and since that time he’s been put in soft with weaker hitters.