By William Mackay: It’s never a good idea to match the division’s hardest puncher Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) against a fighter with a known problem with taking hard shots without going down like WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s). This fight has been waiting for an entire year to happen because Khan and his team hadn’t been eager to get this fight over with. On Saturday night when Maidana and Khan meet up at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, Khan’s team might wish that they had persuaded him to vacate the title instead of going out and getting knocked cold.

It’s not that Khan isn’t any good. I think he’s an excellent fighter when matched against the right kinds of opponents. You put Khan in with a weak puncher like Paulie Malignaggi and Khan will probably win every time without fail. But it’s whole different story when you pair Khan with a knockout artist like Maidana or Breidis Prescott. Then you have the active ingredients to a bad knockout loss for Khan. In 2008, Prescott made easy work of Khan, knocking him out in the 1st round with a series of hard shots.

Khan never stood a chance in that fight and was staggered in the opening seconds of the bout. Prescott quickly finished Khan off, leaving him on his back on the canvas badly hurt. To Khan’s credit, he’s come back from that knockout loss to win his last five bouts, albeit against weak punchers. Now, Khan is getting back on the horse and going up against another huge puncher with Maidana, who looks to be a harder puncher than Prescott. This doesn’t look good for Khan.

But instead of realizing what he’s up against in this fight, Khan and his trainer Freddie Roach have been looking past Maidana and talking about a hoped for fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. Never mind the fact that Khan would still have to beat the winner of the Tim Bradley vs. Devon Alexander bout, it seems very strange that Khan and his trainer would be overlooking these opponents as if they’re the same kinds of fighters that Khan has been carefully matched against since being knocked out by Prescott. I guess this is how it starts when a person’s ego starts to run away with them. They start to assume they’re capable of anything and unfortunately a little thing called reality brings them back down to earth. I expect Maidana to be that reality for Khan on Saturday night.