By William Mackay: World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) is going to try every trick he can to become a better fighter, including taking up yoga. According to the Daily Express, where an unnamed source said “Amir is going to take up yoga as part of a new training regime. He has read about the remarkable benefit it has had for other sportsman, especially Ryan Griggs. This is not some hippy claptrap; It is a move to make him [Khan] an even better boxer and bigger star.”

It’s unknown what benefit that yoga will have for the young Khan other than making him more flexible and perhaps strengthening certain muscles. All of it will be pointless if Khan can’t take a decent shot once he starts facing better opposition. Khan hasn’t been in with any big punchers since being flatted in the 1st round by Breidis Prescott. He’s been able to turn his career around since that loss, winning the WBA light welterweight title last year in 2009 in a 12 round decision win over Andriy Kotelnik, a light puncher.

Khan has also defended his WBA title twice, albeit not against big punchers. Khan is now looking to fight the winner of the July 31st lightweight clash between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz. Khan will be hopefully facing the winner of that fight on December 11th in a fight that will be shown on HBO. Incidentally, Diaz and Marquez are both considerably smaller than Khan and aren’t big punchers.

The one fighter that boxing fans want to see Khan face is knockout artist Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s), the WBA light welterweight interim champion. Khan doesn’t appear to be interested in fighting Maidana anytime soon. However, at some point Khan will have to fight Maidana, because he’s the interim champion, unless Khan vacates or someone comes along and beats Maidana while he’s waiting to fight Khan. Instead of fighting Maidana, Khan recently beat the light-hitting Paulie Malignaggi by an 11th round TKO on May 15th.