By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan and World Boxing Association light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana have signed contracts for a fight that will take place on December 11th at a still to be determined locations. Khan, 23, just had this to say on his Twitter page: “All legality work for the next fight has been done. Fight has been signed by both parties. Khan vs Maidana December 11th Venue – tbc. On @hboboxing and sky.” Khan is going to have to figure out a way to fight for 12 rounds without his glass jaw broken by the hard hitting Maidana. It may not be possible for Khan to win this fight even if he runs for the entire 12 rounds. Maidana hits too hard and once he connects with a hard shot, we may be seeing Khan knocked out once again.

Khan has a reputation for having a glass jaw since being knocked out in the 1st round by Breidis Prescott in the 1st round. Although Khan looks great when fighting weak punchers, he’s vulnerable against guys that can punch a little. In this case, Khan will be facing someone that can punch a lot and unless Khan protect his chin for 12 rounds, he may be kissing the canvas at some point in the fight.

Khan kind of took the back way to a title when he defeated WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik for the belt last year. Kotelnik was considered to be the weakest of the light welterweight champions by many. In taking him on, Khan avoided Timothy Bradley, a fighter that likely would have beaten Khan.

Since winning the title, Khan has had two easy title defenses against Dmitri Salita and Paulie Malignaggi. Neither fighter was a threat to Khan because of their lack of power. Maidana is a threat, a big threat to Khan. There’s no question that Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach is going to devise some kind of plan for Khan to run the entire fight and keep his head away from any of Maidana’s big shots.

However, it may not be humanly possible for Khan to avoid Maidana for the entire 12 rounds without getting blasted by numerous head shots. In the end, Khan will either be able to take Maidana’s shots or he won’t. He won’t be able to run the entire fight and he’s not going to be Maidana with weak jabs and light flurries.

He’s going to have to load up with his shots and try to get Maidana before he gets him. It may not be possible, though. Maidana hits harder than Prescott, and we saw Prescott stagger Khan with a jab. Every time Prescott hit Khan with a left hook, Khan went down.

Khan never gave Prescott a rematch, and my guess is he never will. I can see the same thing happening here. Maidana blows out Khan and that will be the last time that Maidana and Khan fight. For Khan, if loses this fight, he may need to go back to the domestic level and focus on fighting guys in the UK and stay away from fighters on the world stage.