By William Mackay: Even if WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) is carefully matched in 2011, I can still see him getting beaten twice before the year is up. I think his recent “win” over Marcos Maidana took something out of him, making him more perceptible to getting hurt in the future when he gets hit on the noggin. Khan will be fine as long as his legs hold out and he can run like the dickens from his opponents, but once those wheels wear out in his fights, he’s going to probably get knocked cold.

Since he proved that he doesn’t have the stamina to run for 12 rounds in his last fight against Maidana, I expect Khan to run out of gas in his next two fights in 2011 and get knocked out. It’s looking like he might get matched against Lamont Peterson, a lighter puncher, in his next fight in 2011. Normally, that should be a nice safe fight for Khan, because Peterson isn’t much of a puncher and he up and down over and over again on the canvas against Victor Ortiz in his last fight.

However, I think Peterson hits hard enough to take Khan out and he seems to be good at cutting off the ring. I seriously doubt Peterson will get selected for Khan. I think Khan’s handlers will even avoid this guy and instead will match Khan small by putting him in with little Michael Katsidis to take advantage of Katsidis’ better popularity, and the fact that he just pounded – read: softened up – by Juan Manuel Marquez in his last fight. Katsidis, only 5’7″, would be giving up three inches in height to the 5’10” Khan and four inches in reach.

I think that’s an advantage that Khan’s promoters will like much more than one inch height advantage that Khan would have over the 5’9″ Peterson. What makes Peterson even less likely as an opponent is that his reach is 74″, three inches longer than Khan’s. This means that he would be able to tap Khan’s tender chin from the outside all night long and Khan wouldn’t be able to be in control of the fight from the outside like he normally is against his shorter-armed opponents. I still think Katsidis will knock Khan out if they match him up against him, because of what I said earlier about Khan’s chin not being the same after what Maidana did to him. When you get hurt as badly as Khan was against Maidana, it often has long lasting affects.