By William Mackay: World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) says he plans on fighting WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (26-0, 11 KO’s). On Khan’s Twitter page, Khan had this to say about Bradley: “I’ll fight Tim Bradley. It’s the first time he has called me out. I’m going to Vegas and talk to Golden Boy [Khan’s promotional company that handles his boxing career]. I would love the fight. Good style for me. I’m fighting Timothy Bradley next. I’m gonna tell Golden Boy. Let’s see if they want it for real. Talk is cheap.”

This sounds like Khan is talking a lot of hot air. He said similar things about Marcos Maidana, saying he’d talk to Golden Boy Promotions for them to set up a fight against Maidana, and we’ve seen how that’s gone. Instead of seeing Khan against Maidana, we saw Khan matched up against the feather-fisted Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight in May.

After that fight, Khan spoke of wanting to face the top fighters in the light welterweight division. However, instead of facing the top light welterweights in the division, Khan is looking to fight the winner of the July 31st lightweight clash between Juan Diaz and Juan Manuel Marquez. Facing one of those two would appear to be a much safer fight for Khan, because Diaz and Marquez doesn’t have the size to compete at light welterweight and are at their optimum weight in the lightweight division.

Although it would be great if Khan was serious about wanting to fight Bradley next, it just doesn’t seem at all likely. Golden Boy are looking to keep Khan winning in fights that make him and them good money. A fight against Bradley would be very dangerous for Khan because of Bradley’s hand speed and boxing skills. Khan would be getting hit a lot more in that fight than he has in at least two years since he was stopped in the 1st round in 2008 by Breidis Prescott. Since that fight, Khan has been matched pretty softly against non-punchers.

Khan said this about Bradley moving up in weight in his 12 round decision win over Luis Carlos Abregu last Saturday night: “Clever way to avoid the best 140 pounders by moving up.” Bradley, to be fair, still plans on fighting at light welterweight and only moved up to test the waters at welterweight so that he could possibly land a big money fight against one of the stars in the welterweight division.