By William Mackay: You have to wonder why WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) is being positioned his promotional company Golden Boy Promotions to fight the July 31st winner between lightweights Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz. Khan, 23, is no longer fighting in the lightweight division, having left the division a year ago try ply his trade against the bigger, stronger light welterweights.

Thus far, Khan has picked up the World Boxing Association light welterweight title from Andriy Kotelnik and defended the title twice against Dmitri Salita and Paulie Malignaggi. None of those three are particularly dangerous fighters, and boxing fans were hoping that Khan would step it up a notch after he defeated Malignaggi on May 15th.

At the very least, fans were expecting for Khan to fight the WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s). But that’s not who Khan is being steered towards, regrettably. In a move that can only be considered a backwards step, Khan is looking to fight either Marquez or Diaz next in December of this year.

Diaz and Marquez are expected, if they want to get a good payday against the still largely obscure Khan in the United States, to move up in weight to challenge Khan for his WBA light welterweight title. Never mind that both Diaz and Marquez have accomplished much more in their careers than Khan has, and perhaps ever will, they are still likely to have to move up in weight to challenge him.

This brings up a couple of thoughts. Why is Khan not fighting guys from his own weight division? It isn’t as if Khan is looking to fight Diaz and Marquez at their own weight. How does that improve Khan as a fighter when he’s taking on much smaller guys than him.

There’s no doubt that Diaz and Marquez have great skills, but their size disadvantage will create problems for them against the bigger Khan. How does beating smaller fighters make Khan a better fighter in his own division? By beating Marquez or Diaz, it won’t make Maidana any less of a killer puncher, will it? He’ll still be just as dangerous as before, and since Marquez and Diaz are nothing like Maidana, Devon Alexander or Timothy Bradley, it seems like a pointless exercise.

Of course, if the objective is to make Khan a popular fighter without him having to take risks by fighting guys his own size, then I can certainly understand that move. If you have a bigger fighter taking on smaller guys, it really helps the bigger fighter, especially if he’s had a history of chin problems. But I think this is really is putting off something that Khan will have to face sooner or later. By beating smaller and older guys like Marquez, it won’t make Khan an automatic star with the casual boxing fan. Becoming a star takes time, and it can’t be done on the cheap by pitting a flawed fighter with an old lion in order to make a name for him the easy way.

Khan will have to, you would assume, actually beat the top three fighters in the light welterweight division for him to become a star. He won’t be able to keep dragging lightweights up to the light welterweight division to beat over and over again. At some point, Khan will have to fight Victor Ortiz, Bradley, Alexander and Maidana.

Unless Khan’s handlers are looking to put those fights off for two to three years, I think he’s going to get exposed as soon as he faces his first real test among those fighters. I expect Khan to lose to all of them by knockout. Putting it off won’t help matters, because I think Khan’s chin is inherently weak and time won’t help it.