By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) is denying that he’s been taking performance enhancing drugs to assist him in his career. This is in response to some rumors that have been circulating around about him. In an article at the dailystar.co.uk, Khan said “It is hurtful. I am drug tested and have never tested positive because I am so clean. I don’t even drink. I would never, ever take a banned substance. I would never cheat in sport. Why would I want to cheat in sport or take drugs? I am too scared to take something like that because I train so hard and my body is so fit.”

This rumor must be very limited in the circulation because I’ve never heard of Khan being suspected of taking performance enhancing drugs until now. I don’t know how Khan could be suspected. I mean look at his physique. He’s a tall bean pole with legs. He doesn’t have muscles the way that people who take PEDs do and he hasn’t put on a lot of muscle in a short period of time the way that people do when they’re taking these kinds of drugs. And for that matter, he hasn’t exactly moved up a lot of weight classes.

Khan only moved up one weight division and he picked out what many people thought was the weakest of the champions to go after in Andriy Kotelnik. Khan didn’t mow hm down. He ran around the ring for 12 rounds jabbing and looking to avoid getting hit. In his other fights at light welterweight, Khan took on an old Marco Antonio Barrera and that fight was stopped early due to a head butt that caused a cut on the forehead of Barrera. Some of Khan’s other fights have come against little known fighters like Dmitri Salita and Oisin Fagan.

Just recently, Khan took on the weak punching Paulie Malignaggi, who wasn’t much of a factor anymore in the division, and Khan was able to beat him without taking punishment. In Khan’s last fight against Marcos Maidana, Khan was badly hurt in the 10th round and needed to hold on and run in the last three rounds to preserve his victory. At the end of the fight, Khan looked on the verge of losing. The referee Joe Cortez stepped in many times in the last three rounds to separate Khan and Maidana when Khan taking punishment to the head. It’s hard to say what would have happened had the referee not stepped in all those times to separate Khan and Maidana. I think Khan would have been knocked out.

Khan says “Why don’t people say Maidana is on something because the power he has got is mad? He has got power that not many fighters have. I think a lot of people are jealous.”

Why doesn’t Khan give Maidana a rematch if he thinks Maidana is so powerful? That would seem like the smart thing for Khan to do rather than take on someone like Lamont Peterson, who few people want to see Khan fight.