By Jason Kim: WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KO’s) has to get by Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 KO’s) in their rematch next Saturday night in order to get to the fight that Marquez is looking forward to against World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s). The Khan bout will give the 36-year-old Marquez a nice payday. The bad part about that fight is that Marquez, the much more established fighter, will have to move up in weight to fight Khan for his title rather than Khan coming down to Marquez’s weight and fighting for Marquez’s two lightweight titles. There hasn’t been any talk about Marquez fighting Khan at a catch weight, like Manny Pacquiao did in his win over WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto last year in November.

Marquez needs to take care of business against the 26-year-old Diaz, otherwise he can forget all about fighting Khan and getting a big payday. Marquez defeated Diaz by a 9th round stoppage last year in one of the most exciting fights of the year. Diaz has since looked awful in two fights against Paulie Malignaggi, winning the first of the fights but then losing the second one. Marquez, for his part, was easily beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a 12 round decision loss last September. However, HBO didn’t lose interest in putting together the Diaz vs. Marquez fight for the July 31st pay per view fight. Hopefully, HBO doesn’t end up egg in their face if the fight ends up getting low ratings.

The card is one of the better ones in recent memory with 38-year-old Joel Casamayor fighting Robert Guerrero, Daniel Jacobs facing Dmitriy Pirog, and Jorge Linares vs. Rocky Juarez. However, the fight will rise or fall on the main event between Diaz and Marquez. That’s the fight that needs to attract fan interest if this card is going to be successful. Thus far, there’s been almost zero talk about this fight, which could be a bad sign that the fans don’t really care that much for seeing a rematch between Diaz and Marquez. Matters aren’t helped any by the fact that Diaz has lost three out of his last five fights. Fans might feel that this is a fight that belongs more on regular HBO rather than PPV given the struggles that both Diaz and Marquez have been having recently.

Khan will be getting Marquez or Diaz at the perfect time, with both of them appearing to be on the downside of their careers. This is the time for Khan to fight them.