By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) fights Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) on Saturday night, but Khan is extremely confident to the extent that he doesn’t even entertain the thought that he could lose the fight. Khan is feeling good about himself from sparring sessions he had with Manny Pacquiao while assisting him with getting ready for his November bout against Antonio Margarito.

Khan and his trainer Freddie Roach said that he did well against Pacquiao in the sparring sessions and fought him pretty even most of the time. One would hope that these sparring sessions, conducted with head gear and 16 ounce gloves, doesn’t go Khan’s head and cause him to be overconfident for his fight against Maidana. After all, Maidana won’t be wearing 16 ounce gloves and Khan won’t have gear to protect him from big punches on Saturday night.

Khan said this about his sparring with Pacquiao in an article at thisislondon.co.uk,”Sparring is pretty even. Some days he gets the better of me, some days I get the better of him. But it’s mostly even. You’ve got two fighters in there who are very hungry, with big hearts, who are both quick and powerful, so really it’s amazing how we both spar because we’re both technical as well. It’s a good spar because I learn so much off Manny as well. But it’s pretty even.”

I wonder if Khan has ever considered that Pacquiao might have been taking it a little easy on Khan during these sparring sessions. Khan was usually only one of a series of sparring partners that were routinely cycled in one after another. The last thing that Pacquiao would want to do is go all out for four rounds against someone like Khan when he still have another eight rounds against two other fresh sparring partners. I think Khan needs to sit back and consider that, because by saying he’s even with Pacquiao, it leaves one with the impression that he feels that he’s on his level and Khan could be really fooling himself if he believes that.