By William Mackay: Trainer Freddie Roach is expecting big things for his fighter World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) when he takes a step up in competition against Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) next month in their title fight on May 15th at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York. In an article at 8count news, Roach said “We’re [Khan] going to walk right through him” [Malignaggi]. Roach also said that he thinks that Khan will be knocking Malignaggi out early in the fight.

This is an interesting prediction, because although a lot of people are predicting that Khan will get by Malignaggi on May 15th, not many are expecting Khan to take an experienced veteran like Malignaggi out early in the fight. Roach might be seeing something that these people don’t see in Khan and Malignaggi. After all, Roach works with Khan on a daily basis in training camp and knows what he’s capable of doing in the ring.

This is obviously a fight where Roach won’t have Khan playing it safe, trying to avoid getting his chin checked, as Malignaggi doesn’t have a lot of power and probably doesn’t hit hard enough to take Khan out unless he really loaded up on something big and caught Khan when he wasn’t ready. Malignaggi might want to consider working on his power and trying to surprise Khan with a big shot to see if he can possibly hurt the British fighter.

At the very least, Malignaggi might succeed in making Khan nervous about being too aggressive with him. Malignaggi has only been stopped once in his career, losing an 11th round TKO to Ricky Hatton in November 2008. Malignaggi has changed trainers since that defeat and gone back to his old style of fighting in which he moves constantly, lands shots and gets away from his opponents before they can respond. Since the Hatton loss, Malignaggi has won two out of his last three fights, beating Christopher Fernandez and splitting a pair with Juan Diaz.

Many people think that Malignaggi should have won both fights with Diaz, but was at the receiving end of a hometown decision when he fought Diaz in his home city of Houston, Texas. Malignaggi was able to avenge the defeat four months later, beating Diaz by a 12 round unanimous decision in neutral territory at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois. Malignaggi looked very impressive in winning that fight and dominated Diaz from start to finish.

Roach wouldn’t say what he thinks Khan’s future will be following the Malignaggi fight, saying “He’s [Khan] in a very tough weight division. He’s got a lot of tough fights ahead of him.” For Roach, this seems a little uncharacteristic for him not to brag about his fighter. However, Roach was probably playing it safe to avoid looking bad if Khan starts taking losses once he’s put in with better fighters like Marcos Maidana, Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander and Victor Ortiz. These are some of the fighters that Khan is going to have to face if he’s going to become the big star in the light welterweight division that he’s craving to be.

Khan could still become a big star even if he doesn’t face those guys, but it will likely take a lot longer for it to happen. The WBA has some tough fighters ranked near the top of the light welterweight division, such as Ortiz, Victor Cayo and Mike Alvarado. Khan will have to face those guys at some point, as well as Maidana, the WBA interim light welterweight champion.