By William Mackay: Freddie Roach is practically salivating at the thought of Amir Khan being his next great fighter, and sees him winning titles in multiple divisions, unifying belts, becoming the pound-for-pound number #1 fighter in boxing and fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. Khan defends his World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight title tonight against Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Will Khan realize Roach’s grand vision by defeating Maidana in an impressive fashion or will Khan get brutally knocked out the way he was against Breidis Prescott in 2008 and thus ruining Roach’s vision thing?

The one major problem for Roach finding his next gravy train fighter with Khan is that Khan doesn’t have a great chin. In fact, you could say that Khan’s chin is pretty much fragile and should have a ‘handle with care’ sign on it. He’s been knocked down against weak punchers and destroyed by the only hard puncher he’s faced in his career against Prescott. Usually, trainers would be wise enough to hold off on predicting greatness for a fighter if they have a weak chin.

For those types of fighters, it’s smart to take a wait and see approach before saying their going to do this or that. Khan may be the next great fighter like Roach says, but then again he may end up doing well only when matched selectively against weak punchers and routinely knocked out when he’s put in with anyone with power. This has been the case of UK fighter Enzo Maccarinelli, a fighter that looks unbeatable against fighters without power but who invariably gets knocked out against harder punchers. It could be that Khan is just a smaller version of Maccarinelli, and will get blasted out tonight by Maidana. In which case, Roach is going to need to drastically downsize his dreams for Khan and maybe hope that he can just be a paper champion somehow and win another title with careful selection of weaker champions.