By Scott Gilfoid: One of Amir Khan’s victims, Dmitri Salita (32-1-1, 17 KO’s), says he wants to fight Ricky Hatton of all people, and he wants to fight him in Israel. This is kind of amusing. Salita, 28, was for some reason ranked at the number #1 position last year by the World Boxing Association in the light welterweight division despite never having fought a 1st tier fighter in his life. I saw some of Salita’s fights before that and was shocked that the WBA could have this guy ranked at #1 for Khan.

What then happened was Khan went out and quickly knocked Salita out in the 1st round. Now when you look at the sanctioning bodies, Salita is nowhere to be seen in the top tier. He’s now been adjusted and placed in the 2nd tier, which is where I believe he rightfully belongs. It’s nice that Khan was able to get this easy title defense without having to risk his neck facing some hard punchers like Victor Ortiz, Lucas Matthysse or Breidis Prescott. Salita is as slow as molasses and has little power to speak of.

Speaking on a site called, Salita outlines his wishes for 2011 as follows: totally jewish.com, Salita said “I would like to fight in Israel, I would like to fight for a world title and I would like to fight Ricky Hatton, since I read that he is planning a comeback.”

I don’t know where Salita read his information about Hatton staging a comeback, because Hatton, as far as I can tell, hasn’t been saying anything about coming back. Perhaps Salita is reading some old boxing magazines or something about Hatton. He’s probably not going to come back, but even if he did, the last person I think Hatton would want to fight is Salita. That’s just not an interesting fight. And there’s no way that any of the light welterweight champions are going to pick out a 2nd tier fighter like Salita in 2011. That’s not going to happen.

Since being blown out in the 1st round by Khan in December 2009, Salita has beaten two obscure fighters Franklin Gonzalez and James Wayka. Other than the Khan fight, all of Salita’s opponents have been 2nd tier fighters during his nine-year pro career. Salita needs to step it up and work his way to a title shot instead of wishing and hoping guys like Hatton will fight him or that he’ll be suddenly handed another title shot after facing a handful of B level fighters.