By William Mackay: On May 15th, World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) will make his U.S. debut against Paulie Malignaggi at New York’s Madison Square Garden, in New York. Khan, 23, hasn’t proven much at light welterweight aside from beating Andriy Kotelnik and Dmitri Salita, neither of which are considered to be dangerous fighters.

Yet Khan finds himself fighting on HBO, and will get a lot of publicity for a fight against Malignaggi, the former International Boxing Federation champion at one time. Khan has proven to have problems taking on big punchers and there are serious questions as to whether he has the chin to be a top fighter in the light welterweight division.

Although Khan holds a title at this time, there are many boxing fans who feel that he did it the easy way by taking on Kotelnik, who some people felt was a paper champion, rather than the much more dangerous Timothy Bradley and Juan Urango. If HBO is going to be showing Khan’s fights on a regular basis, they could be making a calculated mistake if he proves to be too weak in the chin to hold down his title for very long.

Khan could probably hold onto his WBA crown for a little while as long as he’s not put in with a big puncher like WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) or skilled fighters such as Devon Alexander and Bradley, but once he’s matched against those guys, I have a feeling that his WBA title will be gone in no time flat. And all his fights that will have been shown HBO will be wasted.

The sooner Khan faces someone like Maidana the better. At least if he gets taken out, it will be time saved instead of wasted in showing a bunch of his fights against fighters that are over-matched and unprepared. I think Khan’s fight against Malignaggi is total waste, because it’s not a good test for his chin and it’s going to make a lot of people think he’s the real deal. But when he’s eventually put in with a big puncher like Maidana, all those news fans of Khan will probably be crying crocodile tears and wondering what happened to their new hero. Nothing would have happened that wouldn’t have taken place if they had matched Khan up with Maidana immediately to see if Khan could make the cut in the light welterweight divisions’ elite.