Is Khan already looking for excuses not to fight Maidana?

By Boxing News - 08/26/2010 - Comments

Image: Is Khan already looking for excuses not to fight Maidana?By William Mackay: Recently, World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) talked about WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) wanting too much money to fight him. I thought something was fishy there, because this was the exact same thing that Khan said about Michael Katsidis in the past. Now Khan is saying the same thing about Maidana and it smells like Khan is looking for a reason not to have to take that fight. Maidana came out today in an interview at Fightnews.com, and said that he and his promoters haven’t even started any negotiations with Khan.

Maidana thinks Khan is looking for a reason not to have to fight Maidana and risk getting knocked out like Victor Ortiz did last year. Khan, 23, was hoping to fight the smaller and older Juan Manuel Marquez on December 11th. That would have been an arguably easier fight for Khan, because of Marquez’s limited height and weaker power compared to Maidana. Marquez put a dart in Khan’s dream by choosing to stay at lightweight and fight WBO lightweight interim champion Katsidis instead.

This leaves Khan with little choice but to fight Maidana or else he’ll look like he’s running from him. I still don’t think Khan will fight Maidana. I can see him continuing with the argument that Maidana wants too much money until the fight is completely off the table. Khan would then be free to fight a weaker puncher and much less of a threat to him. Since being knocked out by Breidis Prescott in 2008, Khan has been put in with exclusively weak punchers with little chance of knocking him out.

Maidana would be going from one extreme to the other for Khan. He would be going from facing fighters that can’t punch at all, like his last fight against the feather fisted Paulie Malignaggi, to a fighter that punches harder than even Prescott. Like I said, I don’t see the fight happening until the WBA forces Khan to fight Maidana by threatening to strip him of his title.

Maidana is just too powerful and Khan would have to be able to take his punches in order to beat him. Khan couldn’t run long and hard enough to keep from getting hit by Maidana. Sooner or later, Maidana would catch him in a corner or against the ropes and then it would be just Maidana and Khan’s chin. I don’t think Khan’s chin would be able to take any power shots from Maidana without betraying him again.



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