By Sean McDaniel: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan says he wants to unify the light welterweight titles after his 11th round TKO win over Paulie Malignaggi last Saturday night. But we may be seeing something completely opposite of that if his promotional team gets through with him. There is talk of the 23-year-old Khan fighting WBO lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis next in July, and provided that Khan gets through that fight without being knocked out again, he could be facing the winner of the WBO lightweight clash between champion Juan Manuel Marquez and former lightweight champion and star Juan Diaz.
If Marquez turns out to be the winner of that fight, Khan would have to hope that he doesn’t vacate the title and go in another direction rather than him. Marquez already showed his disinterest in fighting Khan recently by ignoring the attempts of their mutual promoters Golden Boy Promotions in putting him in with Khan. Hopefully, Golden Boy’s CEO Richard Schaefer has run the idea of Khan-Marquez by Juan before he starts steering the light welterweight Khan in a fight with Marquez in the future.
Unless he’s spoken to Marquez about this, I think this could backfire on him if Marquez again shows no interest in fighting Khan. Never the less, if Khan does end up fighting both Katsidis and Marquez that would essentially finish out 2010 for Khan. There would e no fights between Khan and the top light welterweights in the division, other than his win over the weak punching Malignaggi. Malignaggi was ranked at number #3 by the WBA, but a truer ranking would be closer to number #10 in my view. It would be a curious move on Golden Boy’s part if Khan is going to be steered against lightweights rather than the top light welterweights.
Khan has been mentioning wanting to unify the titles, and this would not exactly be making a move on accomplishing that goal,. Maybe Khan’s promoters think he’s too young and needs more experience before he’s put in with the top light welterweights. That would make sense, but in that case, Khan should move down to lightweight and stay there for awhile instead of moving back and forth between the two divisions depending on who they see that’s appealing to match Khan up against. They can wait forever before putting Khan in with the best in the light welterweight division, but the longer they wait the more likely a bigger puncher will come along to stop Khan.
Against top light welterweights like Marcos Maidana, Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley and Victor Ortiz, Khan would have his hands full. They could wait before putting him in with them, but it would also be an increasing chance that a younger fighter may move up in weight and that would make Khan’s position even tougher than it is now.
Marquez is 36 and is coming off a 12 round decision loss against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year. Marquez didn’t look at all good in that fight, and he looked slower than he was before only a year earlier. Some of it was weight, but the other part appeared to be from the natural aging process.
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