By William Mackay: Both WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) and his famous trainer Freddie Roach like to point out that WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) would lose if he were to fight Khan, yet for some reason Khan hasn’t stepped up to the plate to actually shown that he can beat the hard hitting Maidana. Instead of fighting Maidana, Khan has fought Dmitri Salita and Paulie Malignaggi since capturing the World Boxing Association light welterweight title last year with a 12 round decision win over Andriy Kotelnik. Now would be the perfect time for Khan to finally fight Maidana.

However, instead of taking that huge challenge, Khan is looking to fight smallish lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez in December, if Marquez decides to take the fight. Isn’t time that Khan fights Maidana? What I wonder is whether or not Khan is waiting for someone else to come along and beat Maidana before him, so that he would be off the hook. We saw that Khan never fought a rematch with Breidis Prescott, a fighter who knocked Khan out in the 1st round. If there was ever an opponent out there that you would think that Khan should be fighting, Prescott is the guy since he destroyed Khan so easily in their fight in 2008.

But if you ask Khan, he’ll probably say ‘what’s the point of fighting Prescott now that he’s been beaten by Miguel Vazquez and Kevin Mitchell.’ This means that Khan won’t fight Prescott just because he was beaten by someone else. Will Khan use that same excuse if Maidana gets beaten? If Prescott being beaten a couple of times disqualifies him for a Khan rematch, then why did Khan fight Paulie Malignaggi? He had been beaten by Ricky Hatton in an 11th round knockout and also been beaten by Juan Diaz shortly before Khan fought him. Why fight Malignaggi? Was it because he wasn’t much of a threat due to his nonexistent power?

I have a feeling that if someone good comes along and beats Maidana, then we’ll never see Khan fight Maidana. I hope I’m wrong about this, but I have a strong feeling that Maidana is going to be sidestepped permanently by Khan. All that needs to happen is for someone to beat him soon. However, if Maidana keeps winning, eventually Khan will have to make a decision whether to fight him or vacate his WBA title. He can’t avoid that fight forever. Once he fights him, I see Khan losing by knockout again and ending up exposed once more.

Maidana will be facing DeMarcus Corley next month on September 28th in Argentina. Maidana won’t lose that fight, and that will keep the pressure on Khan to finally take him on. I don’t know how long the WBA will wait before they finally order Khan to fight Maidana or else risk having his title stripped from him. It seems to me that this should have happened a long time because Maidana has been the World Boxing Association interim champion since June of last year.