By William Mackay: It’s looking now like WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO’s) will be sticking with his own division for awhile to defend his titles against World Boxing Organization lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KO’s) next instead of moving up in weight to take on World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s), according to the latest boxing news from Dan Rafael. This obviously isn’t going to please Khan, because he had been hoping to take on the smaller Marquez and try to build a quick name for himself by beating the smaller, older, slower Mexican boxing legend.

It would have been a way for Khan to build a name for himself on the cheap by not taking on fighters in his own weight class and age level. Now, however, Khan is looking at the unpleasant likelihood of finally having to take on WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s), who has murderous punching power and could end Khan’s dream of becoming a huge super star in an instant. It will be interesting to see if that fight gets made, even with the Marquez bout now seemingly off the table.

Khan can often says that his opponents price themselves out of fights against him by asking for too much money. You have to wonder whether Maidana will be put in that category by Khan, so that he can move on and take on someone like little known light welterweight contenders Brunet Zamora and Alberto Mosquera.

Marquez is being smart by sticking to fighting in his own weight division. He’s really pushing it to be fighting at lightweight, because he spent most of his career fighting as a featherweight until recently. It would make no sense to move up to the light welterweight division to take on Khan, who’s trying to make a name for himself in the United States and isn’t someone that will get Marquez any closer to a fight against Manny Pacquiao. Arum has even said it himself. For Marquez to get a third fight against Pacquiao, Marquez will have to beat a welterweight like Joshua Clottey or Andre Berto.