By William Mackay: If you think WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) will be able to get by the power punching Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) without having to brawl with the Argentinian fighter, you’re deceiving yourself. Khan will be fighting Maidana on December 11th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Khan seems to think he’s going to be able to win the fight by running around in wide circles the way that he did against the 5’7” Andriy Kotelnik last year when he captured the World Boxing Association light welterweight title against him. The problem with that is Kotelnik is shorter than 5’9” Maidana, and much weaker.

Despite Khan’s running and treating Kotelnik like he was a knockout artist rather than a weak puncher with only 13 knockouts on his record, Kotelnik was still able to catch up to Khan numerous times in the later portions of the fight.

If you look at that fight again, you’ll see that Khan got hit a lot and ended up with a badly swollen face from Kotelnik’s light punches. And that was with Khan running for his life in every round. My point is Khan didn’t have the wheels to run the entire time and avoid every punch that Kotelnik threw in the fight, and it’s simply not possibly to avoid getting hit from another fighter for 12 rounds.

The only way to avoid getting hit is to stop the guy early. Maidana may not have the fastest hands and the best foot movement, but he is very good at cutting off the ring and landing his power shots in close.

Khan may try to run, but he’s going to get caught by Maidana repeatedly on the ropes and nailed with the kind of power punches that he hasn’t been hit with since he was knocked out by Breidis Prescott in the 1st round two years ago.

Has Khan’s chin gotten better like he says it has? I really don’t think it has. I think Khan has fooled himself by thinking this because of the weak punching opponents that have been fed to him since his loss to Prescott.

If I was Khan, I wouldn’t even begin to think that my chin had gotten better if all I had fought against was weak punching opponents like the ones that Khan had been fighting. We won’t know if Khan’s chin has gotten better until he’s able to take Maidana’s power shots for 12 rounds without hitting the canvas.

Like I said, I don’t think it’s possible for a chin to get better. It may seem better if you’re management is steering you away from punchers, but chins don’t get better.