By Sean McDaniel: For the first time in his career, unbeaten EBU light welterweight champion Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) has hired a strength and conditioning coach to work on getting him in the best possible shape for his bout against WBA Super World light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) on April 16th at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England.

McCloskey, 31, generally looks smooth, like someone that’s carrying around a little bit of flab on his small frame. This new trainer is working to get him in the best possible shape for the Khan fight. However, McCloskey still doesn’t cut up and has the same smooth look as usual. McCloskey needs to find some power if he wants to get the win over khan, because that’s how you beat Amir. McCloskey can punch a little bit with his left hand, but he’s got to really load up on his shots to hurt anybody.

McCloskey isn’t going to be able to just walk Khan down like Marcos Maidana last December. McCloskey will need to pressure, avoid shots and focus on loading up on his left hand as much as possible. Being a southpaw could really help McCloskey because Khan hasn’t had to fight too many southpaws during his career. He may have a number of southpaws in training camp with him but McCloskey is a fighter that’s especially difficult to mimic. He throws shots from weird angles and mixes his punches up well. Khan is going to get hit with some shots that he last expects them. The thing is if McCloskey loads up on even one of these shots, he’ll have a shot at taking Khan out.