By William Mackay: For some reason, WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) is completely resistant to trying to avenge his 1st round knockout defeat at the hands of Colombian knockout artist Breidis Prescott (23-2, 19 KO’s) from three years ago.

Despite the overwhelming majority of the boxing public wanting to see Khan face Prescott in his next fight in the UK on April 16th, Khan is likely going to face #5 World Boxing Association ranked light welterweight contender Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) next instead of Prescott. McCloskey is 31, has little power, zero hand speed and is a complete unknown outside of the UK.

In terms of the best fighters in the light welterweight division, I rank McCloskey around #40, well below Prescott. The WBA has made some strange calls in ranking fighters in the past, as what can else can you say when you see former Khan opponent Dimitri Salita ranked #1 without one credible opponent during his career. For some reason, Khan doesn’t want to face Prescott again and dismisses him because of his two losses to Miguel Vazquez and Kevin Mitchell.

The Vazquez fight was a case of a fighter with an awkward style doing just enough to make Prescott miss with his shots and beating him by a narrow 10 round split decision. There’s no shame in getting beaten by Vazquez, as he’s IBF lightweight champion right now.

As far as Prescott’s loss to Mitchell, I had Prescott winning that fight because he out-landed Mitchell in every round of the fight with power shots. All Mitchell did was run around the ring, throwing jabs and looking to try and steal the rounds in the last 20 seconds with flurries. I had Prescott winning that fight nine rounds to three based on his better work rate and because of his bigger shots landed.

I think Khan is just looking for an excuse not to have to face Prescott because he doesn’t want to get knocked out again.

Khan said this in an article at the dailymail.co.uk: ‘I’d like to thank Prescott for the lesson he forced me to learn. He did me a huge favour that night. I’d love to fight him again, because I’ve fought every boxer who beat me in my amateur career and avenged each defeat, but he’s slipped off the radar.”

I think Khan is just making excuses not to have to face Prescott and suffer another humiliating knockout loss to him.