By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) is coming off an easy win against an opponent that was tailor made for him in Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight this month. As expected, many of the younger boxing fans are already crowning Khan as the best thing since sliced bread after this performance and are already talking about it being a foregone conclusion that Khan will beat the top light welterweights Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana.

Well, we probably won’t learn if Khan is better than those fighters or not based on his next fight, because it’s likely that Khan will get close to fighting none of them. Khan and his trainer Freddie Roach are saying that they want to fight WBA light welterweight interim champion Maidana next. However, they must know what we all know, that Maidana has an injured back and likely won’t be able to get near a ring for months.

It sounds good that Khan is calling Maidana out left and right, but it’s less interesting once you realize that Maidana’s back is badly injured and there probably isn’t a prayer that he’ll be able to fight anytime soon. So you can forget about Maidana as a next opponent for Khan. And like I said, Khan won’t be fighting Bradley or Alexander next. Golden Boy Promotions would like to match the hard hitting Victor Ortiz against Khan, but I don’t see that fight happening. Ortiz hits too hard and I see him being bypassed.

Khan’s fans are pointing out that he beat Ortiz years ago while in the amateurs while wearing headgear, so we’re supposed to follow along that Khan would be able to do the same while in the profs many years later, without headgear. Okay, I get it. Forget about Ortiz, too, I guess. That leaves guys like Juan Urango, Lamont Peterson, Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres for Khan to fight. I think the hard hitting Torres would be an exciting pick for Khan to showcase his talent more on HBO and to help prepare him for Maidana down the road.

But do I see them letting Khan fight the murderous punching Torres. No way, he’s dangerous. Peterson and Holt are interesting because they can punch a little bit, but I don’t see either of them getting picked. Urango, who moves like a slow tank, is who I see Khan getting matched against. He moves slow enough for Khan to dominate with his jab alone and was recently stopped by Alexander. That’s the guy will probably get picked for Khan. I hope I’m wrong, but this is who I see getting selected for Khan, someone who he can look good against again.

Golden Boy Promotions wanted to match Khan against WBO lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis, who they wanted to move up in weight to fight Khan. That would have been really fair, watching a shot, bloated Katsidis get bullied around the ring for 12 rounds by Khan. Katsidis reportedly said no to this fight, and instead wants to wait around and fight WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez. Golden Boy also would like to match Khan against Marquez, but that probably won’t happen either.

Marquez, who is getting up there in age at 36, already wasn’t interested in fighting Khan months ago when Golden Boy Promotions was looking to match their young hopeful star Khan against Marquez. It would have been sad to see Marquez being used like that to face a much bigger younger fighter. I could kind of see this fight happening if Khan was in Marquez’s weight class and was fighting all the guys to get to a title shot, like proving he could beat Breidis Prescott. Unfortunately, Khan moved up to the