By William Mackay: EBU light welterweight champion Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) is looking like the one who will be hand picked by WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) for his next fight on April 16th instead of a better known fighter and one that has the power and talent to actually give Khan a competitive fight. Khan was supposed to be fighting #6 WBA ranked contender Lamont Peterson (28-1, 14 KO’s) next but Khan is now complaining that Peterson wanted too much money and that he had priced himself out of the fight. That may be true or it may be code for Peterson is ‘too dangerous for me.’

In an article at the belfasttelegraph.co.uk, McCloskey had this to say about Khan: It’s a fight I have wanted for some time and I have earned the right to fight Khan the traditional way by winning the British and European titles and I’m unbeaten. I think the next 24 to 48 hours are going to be very exciting, we should hopefully know if the fight will happen. It would be a great fight for the public and I know that I can him him.”

It’s debatable, but what’s not debatable is that McCloskey has no power and is pretty limited fighter. Forget about the useless ranking that the WBA gave McCloskey when the put him at #5, I see McCloskey as a bottom 20 fighter, and it looks like fightnews agrees with me because they don’t have McCloskey ranked in their top 16. I rate feather-fisted Paulie Malignaggi and Andriy Kotelnik as a lot better than McCloskey. Of course, Khan’s fans are probably turn to the WBA’s inflated ranking they gave to McCloskey to justify him being a good opponent and someone with talent. Sorry, these sanctioning bodies rank all kinds of fighters for different reasons and talent seems to have very little to do with it. Who in their right mind would rank Khan’s past opponent Dmitri Salita at #1 when he had done nothing to deserve it. The WBA did that, and they also are the same ones that have McCloskey ranked #5. This is just another weak opponent for Khan to fight to keep him winning so that he doesn’t exposed. He will soon anyway when he takes on the winner of the Timothy Bradley vs. Devon Alexander match.