By Sean McDaniel: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) came away from his London presc conference meeting with World Boxing Association light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) that the Argentinian was looking kind of overweight, saying “Maidana looks pudgy to me.” Johny Nelson, the analyst for Sky Sports, said “Maidana is made for him” [Khan]. Maidana did look a little heavy at the press conference, but nothing that can’t be taken off through three long months of training. Maidana says he’s not even going to worry about winning by a decision, because he intends on knocking Khan out.

It’s going to be interesting to see what comes of this fight, because Khan feels pretty confident that he’s going to be able to out-box Maidana. However, Khan has been shielded from big hitters for the past two years and this is a fight where he’s going to be unprotected for the first time since his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott two years ago. Khan is going to get hit a lot by Maidana, and the real test is whether Khan’s chin will be able to take the shots.

You can expect Khan to be literally running around the ring for the first six to eight rounds, but he’s going to slow down in the second part of the fight through fatigue. Maidana is likely going to catch Khan on the ropes in every round and connect with something big. Khan won’t be able to sit down on his shots like he did in his last fight against Paulie Malignaggi, because Maidana has one punch power and he can end the fight at any moment.

Freddie Roach will tell Khan to jab and move, and that’s pretty much all Roach will want him to do unless he sees that Maidana is exhausted and ready to be taken out. It’s doubtful that Maidana will tired enough for Roach to want to take chances, though, and there’s a good chance that the fight will be over by the 6th round if Maidana connects. Again, Khan has been protected for punchers for the past two years and this is his first fight against a slugger since being stopped by Prescott. Maidana punches harder than Prescott, so this could go really badly for Khan.