By William Mackay: I’ve seen a number of Amir Khan’s fights and pretty much in every case where he was hit with a good shot, he was either staggered, knocked down or knocked out. The thing of it is Khan has only been in with one big puncher in his career and that was Breidis Prescott, who flattened him in one round.

But in December, Khan will be facing WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana and he’s going to land something big sooner or later on Khan’s chin and I don’t think Khan is going to be able to stay upright once he gets hit. Khan was knocked down by the light hitting Willie Limond, knocked down twice by Prescott, staggered by an old and small Marco Antonio Barrera.

Khan obviously has improved some since Freddie Roach started training him. Khan throws fewer combinations now compared to the way he used to, and he jabs and moves much more often as well. But Khan has been in with nothing but weak punchers since his loss to Prescott, and that probably is factor for why he’s looking so good now.

He’s not getting hit hard anymore because his opponents have been light punchers recently. Well, unless Khan decides not to take the fight with Maidana, which is a real possibility given how much complaining Khan has been doing lately about Maidana, I can see Khan getting hit with a lot of hard shots from Maidana.

You can’t fight Maidana without getting hit with hard shots, because that’s all he throws is hard shots. He loads up on everything he throws and he’s naturally a really strong dude. It’s going to be like shooting gallery. Maidana is going to miss a certain percentage of his shots because Khan is going to present himself as a constantly moving target to keep from getting knocked cold, but sooner or later, Maidana is going to hit Khan.

And each time that Maidana hits Khan, it’s going to be harder than anything that Khan has been hit with before. I’ve studied Prescott and Maidana’s fights, and I’m certain that Maidana is the much bigger puncher of the two. With Prescott, he would only clobber you with something really big every once in a while.

He had to hit you just right for you to be in trouble. But with Maidana, he’s capable of producing a knockout with every punch he throws, even the ones that only barely connect. I just don’t have any faith that Khan’s chin is going to be able to take Maidana’s shots without Khan going down and staying down.

If Victor Ortiz couldn’t stand up to Maidana, then I don’t see how Khan can. I think Khan might be able to take a few of Maidana’s punches, but he has 12 full rounds in which Khan will have to take punches. Even if you’re being conservative and thinking that Maidana will only land 10 huge punches per round, that’s still 9 more than I think Khan will be able to take without being knocked out.