By Sean McDaniel: The only thing stopping the agreed upon unification bout between WBA Super World light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) and WBC/WBO champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) is Ireland’s Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s), who meets up with Khan on April 16th at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England.

Khan selected McCloskey because he’s ranked #5 by the WBA, but more importantly he’s someone that his fans in Britain will be interested in seeing. When you add the many Irish fans that will be watching the fight on pay-per-view, it’s understandable why Khan selected McCloskey.

Khan wants to get through McCloskey without any mishaps so that he can get to the unification bout with Bradley and then from there, if Khan wins, he’ll be moving out of the light welterweight division to chase Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley at welterweight. Khan likely won’t have to chase the soon to be 40-yer-old Mosley, because he’ll likely gladly take the fight with Khan, especially if Mosley is badly beaten in May in his fight against Manny Pacquio.

However, Khan will still want Mosley for the same reason that Pacquiao is fighting him now. Mosley is popular, a fighter that the casual boxing fans have heard of in the United States while at the same time he’s not as much of a threat nowadays as he used to be because of his advanced age. But McCoskey, 31, stands in the way of Khan’s potential future success.

If Khan gets beaten by McCloskey, he’ll have to go back to fighting the weak punchers that he’s been mostly fighting since he was creamed by Breidis Prescott in a one round blowout in 2008.