By William Mackay: Just when you thought WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) couldn’t go any lower in looking for his next opponent for his still open April 16th date at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Khan’s dad, Shah, is saying that former WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter (27-3-2, 22 KO’s) has been added to the list of potential opponents for Khan. I’m sorry, but I see this as a terrible option for Khan. You can ignore Witter’s impressive looking ring record because he’s not the same fighter he once.

Shah had this to say about Witter in an interview at thesun.co.uk: “Junior is on our list. He’s an ex-world champion who lost a split decision to Tim Bradley, who Amir hopes to fight. So no one can criticize his pedigree.”

I think a lot of people can criticize this choice regardless of Witter giving Bradley some problems in the past. That fight took place three years ago. When your 36, like Witter, those three years are like dog years. A fighter changes a lot from 33 to 36. It doesn’t matter that Witter gave Bradley problems years ago. He’s not the same fighter and he would get badly beaten by Bradley now, and we just saw a very average Bradley in the Devon Alexander fight. Isn’t Shah confident that Khan can beat Bradley after seeing how mediocre the guy is?

Witter is coming off 18 months on no activity and having lost two out of his last three fights, Witter is a mere shadow of what he once was. This would be cherry picking at it’s finest if Khan were to fight Witter at this point. I think Witter would have been a great choice for Khan four years ago when he had a little left in the tank, but the guy looks totally shot now. I think Witter makes Paul McCloskey look like great, and I’m not impressed at all with McCloskey.

If Khan is just looking for an easy opponent and a name to add to his resume, but with no value because of his age, then Witter is the guy to fight. I can’t see Americans being impressed with this choice. Witter recently said on Sky Sports Ringside that he can’t make light welterweight anymore because it takes too much out of him. So Khan wants to fight this guy, even though Witter is saying it’s too hard for him to make the weight because it weakens him now that he’s nearing 40. Witter is the type of old lion that Khan should have years ago. He’s one of those types that young fighters should be starting out on, not guys like Khan that are already established.