By William Mackay: Assuming WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) gets by former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) next month on May 15th at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York, one has to wonder who Golden Boy Promotions and Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach will match him up against next. The Malignaggi bout is being used to build a fan base for Khan, a fight that was put together to give Khan a better chance of both winning and looking good. Khan, 23, wants to be not only well known in the United States, but he also wants to be a huge mega star in the States.
If that is going to happen, Khan’s management team are going to have to start putting him in with bigger threats than the weak punching Malignaggi. It’s going to take someone who can actually punch a little bit and who has a chance of beating Khan at his own game. Malignaggi, a good fighter but not a big puncher, doesn’t have the firepower to really test Khan’s notoriously weak chin.
As far as being a good talker in the David Haye mold, Malignaggi will do a good job of selling the Khan-Malignaggi fight in the last weeks leading up to their May 15th fight. But as far as putting in a good fight, it’s more than likely Malignaggi won’t make Khan look good enough to bring him any kind of fame. Malignaggi will probably move a lot, hunt and peck on the outside, and look to keep from getting hit with Khan’s flurries. This isn’t the type of opponent that Khan looks good against. He mainly shines against immobile fighters with poor hand speed who stand in one place all night long rather than move around constantly like the weak-punching Malignaggi.
Khan says “He [Malignaggi] can make me a bigger star here…I know the fans are going to start to love me.” I assume Khan is talking about the casual boxing fan base, the ones that will likely be impressed with Khan’s hand speed, flurries and movement. They may very well be impressed with Khan’s victory over Malignaggi, just as long as Khan fights with some urgency and purpose. He’s going to have to look more impressive than he did in his 12 round decision win over Andriy Kotelnik last year.
That wasn’t an interesting fight by Khan, and seemed to be a backwards step for him in terms of showing offensive firepower. However, the hard boxing fans won’t likely be impressed with a Khan victory over Malignaggi no matter what Khan does in the fight. The hard core boxing fans want to see Khan face a real threat, someone like WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s), who is actually better known in the United States than Khan is. If Khan can fight Maidana, and beat him somehow without controversy, then Khan will have gone a long way towards winning over the hardcore boxing fans.
Of course, beating a huge puncher like Maidana is easier said than done, because with his knockout power and heavy pressure, he might prove to be too good for Khan. This is why it’s doubtful that Khan will be facing Maidana any time soon. He’s clearly not going to be fighting Maidana in 2010, and if Maidana is beaten by someone like Devon Alexander, who’s being talked about as a potential next opponent, then Khan probably never will face Maidana.
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