By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) gave fellow Brit EBU lightweight champion John Murray (30-0, 18 KO’s) a bit of hope that he can get a fight with him in the future, but only if the 25-year-old Murray faces and defeats top light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz (28-2-1, 22 KO’s) on the undercard of Khan’s December 11th bout against World Boxing Association light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s). It seems that Khan is leading Murray into a bear trap, because Ortiz punches incredibly hard and would likely knock Murray out. But with a big money payday against Khan if Murray to beat Ortiz, it’s likely going to be too hard for Murray to resist trying to beat Ortiz.

Khan had this to say in an article at the Manchester Evening News: “I don’t think he [Murray] deserves his chance [against Khan]. He’s not proven. I’ve not seen anything he’s done. We will offer him Victor Ortiz on the undercard of my fight with Maidana. If he beats Ortiz, I will fight him. He’s not earned his name yet. The undercard of an Amir Khan fight would be good for him if he could get that.”

There’s no question that Murray would do well to take the fight with Ortiz, because he would be seen world wide by boxing fans. In fairness to Murray, Khan was still pretty much unproven when he was given a title shot against WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik last year. Khan hadn’t even fought at light welterweight, when he took what many boxing fans thought was the weakest of the light welterweight champions at the time.

Before facing Kotelnik for the title, Khan had been knocked out by Breidis Prescott a year earlier and had recently beaten an old Marco Antonio Barrera by a 5th round technical decision. The Barrera win, sadly, was Khan’s best victory of his entire career, and it came against an old, smaller, some would say “shot” Barrera. I think Murray deserves as much chance at fighting for a title as Khan did, but American fans wouldn’t be interested in this fight unless Murray beats Ortiz on 12/11. I don’t think Murray has any chance of doing that, but at least he’ll get good visibility in the process of being knocked out by Ortiz.

Murray has been eager to fight Khan for some time now, but the only problem is, Murray hasn’t stepped it up against world class opposition so that he can make an argument that he deserves a shot at Khan. Amir isn’t just going to pick him out for a fight, because Murray doesn’t fight in the same weight class and doesn’t a world title in his possession. Murray needs to beat Ortiz, which is a tall order, and then he’ll get his big money fight against Khan.