By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s attempt to put together a fight against EBU light welterweight champion Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) has reportedly fallen apart due to Khan offering too little money to McCloskey. The two fighters were attempting to put a fight together for April 16th at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England. However, McCloskey’s promoter Barry Hearn said “The deals placed on the table were an insult to Paul, an undefeated fighter and a European champion. Amir cannot fight himself, and I’m afraid you have to pay opponents to step in the ring with you, and pay them fairly.”

Khan wants an opponent but is focused on getting someone that doesn’t want a lot of money. That’s the problem, because unless Khan wants to take on a totally obscure fighter that no one will take seriously, he’s going to have to open up his pocket book if he wants anyone good that the boxing public will respect and care about. Breidis Prescott, who holds a 1st round knockout win over Khan, has volunteered his services for 4/16 and says he doesn’t want a lot of money. However, Khan doesn’t seem interested in taking that risk of potentially getting knocked out for a 2nd time by Prescott.

The Khan-McCloskey fight would have been a strictly UK thing, because American boxing fans aren’t familiar with McCloskey, even though the WBA has him ranked at number #5. The World Boxing Association has made some strange rankings in the past couple of years, especially when they ranked Dimitri Salita as Khan’s number #1 contender in December 2009, despite Salita never having faced a top tier opponent before. McCloskey also has never faced a top tier opponent before, yet he’s ranked #5 by the WBA.

Khan needs to go back to the drawing board and look for someone else now. He’s been considering a fight against Lamont Peterson, a fighter that just came off a gift 10 round draw against Victor Ortiz in December. Peterson looked horrible and HBO, like myself, had Ortiz winning that fight. Peterson has no power but he looks a lot better than McCloskey in my view. He’d be a decent test for Khan.