Maidana says he’d be willing to fight Khan in England: Does Amir want to tempt fate a second time?

By Boxing News - 01/26/2011 - Comments

By William Mackay: The hard hitting Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’s) says he’d be willing to travel to England to fight WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) in a rematch. Speaking on his twitter page, Maidana said “I’d go to England right now to pick what I left in Las Vegas and beat him.” Khan was incredibly lucky to have survived his fight with Maidana in December, winning by a 12 round decision after getting badly hurt in the 10th and having to hang on during the last three rounds while Maidana used his head as pinata.

After the fight, Khan’s nose was badly swelled up, his face reddened like a ripe tomato and his eyes red. Khan’s face looked a lot like a house cat with the swelling of his nose. Maidana really punishment Khan with power shots in the last three rounds. The fight was one of the most exciting bouts of 2010, and HBO would likely be all over a rematch between them. I don’t know that Khan is interested in facing Maidana again in this life time, however, Khan is looking to fight the little known Paul McCloskey next instead of facing someone with more power and better known.

McCloskey is a good European level fighter, but he’s never faced a world class opponent during his career. I think Maidana would take McCloskey out in one or two rounds with ease. It wouldn’t even be a fight. If HBO shows the Khan-McCloskey fight, they’re probably going to be bitterly disappointed because this will be the exact opposite of the exciting fight between Khan and Maidana. I see Khan destroying McCloskey without any problems in a mismatch.

HBO doesn’t like mismatches and I’d be surprised if they agree to this fight. Perhaps the only reason they may agree to it now is that Manny Pacquiao is gone from their network and they may not want to mess things up with Khan by standing firm and saying no to what appears to be a hopeless mismatch on paper. At the very least, Khan should be fighting someone who has fought at least one world class opponent during his career. The last time I checked, McCloskey has never fought a world class opponent and has been facing domestic and Euro fighters the whole of his career.



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