By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) now seems to be changing his tune from wanting a fight against WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez on December 11th to now talking about wanting to fight WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) next in December, according to boxing news from the 23-year-old Khan’s Twitter page. Khan said this about fighting Maidana: “Looking @ fighting Maidana. Hopefully, Golden Boy Promotions [Khan’s promoter] can get the fight in the UK in December 11th, and then go for the winner of Alexander vs. Bradley in the new year.”

Wow, that would be sensational news if Khan is at all serious about wanting to fight Maidana next. Khan has talked about wanting to fight Maidana in the past, but then turned around and fought the light hitting Paulie Malignaggi. After that fight, Khan spoke about wanting to fight Maidana but instead has been linked with a possible fight against the much smaller Marquez. I think that’s a bad fight for Golden Boy to be making because Khan would have a huge advantage in size over Marquez and if he did beat the Mexican star, it would hurt Marquez’s ability to land a big money fight in the future with Pacquiao.

Golden Boy may not realize this, but they need to look at that possibility, because a loss for Marquez to Khan would be just the excuse that Bob Arum would need to continue to avoid having Pacquiao fight Marquez. It’s also much better for Khan to take the fight against Maidana now rather than continuing to put it off seemingly without end. If Khan can beat Maidana decisively, Khan all of a sudden will have won over huge portions of the diehard boxing fans from that win.

Khan will get the casual fans anyway, but the diehard fans that he would be winning over with a victory over Maidana. I’m still not sure that Khan can beat him. Maidana cut off the ring expertly in his last fight against Victor Cayo when he attempted to boxing from the outside, and once Maidana was in close, he battered Cayo and ended up taking him out with a hard body shot. Maidana would be murder if he was able to get in close to Khan and land his short punches. Khan could run for a while, but Maidana would catch up to him sooner or later and test his fragile chin over and over again.