By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) and his management have picked what appears to be a weak enough opponent in EBU light welterweight champion Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) for Khan to sail to victory on April 16th without getting staggered or badly hurt like he was in his last fight against Marcos Maidana last December.

McCloskey has none of the power that Maidana possesses and it would seem that this is a nice safe fight for the sometimes fragile-chinned Khan. However, the 31-year-old McCloskey isn’t going to surrender without a fight and you can bet that he will have studied the many fights in which Khan was either dropped or hurt in the past.

McCloskey isn’t much of a puncher, but he is capable of finding some respectable power when he loads up and puts everything he can into his shots. I’d suggest that McCloskey try doing that on 4/16, because unless he can hit Khan hard early and get him retreating and fighting off the ropes, McCloskey has no chance of winning.

Khan will basically hang himself with his useless running if McCloskey can put the fear in Khan early by tagging him hard with something. If McCloskey hangs back and plays his defensive game, he’s going to get knocked out quickly because Khan will come at him early looking to land something hard.

Of course, Khan will be throwing his judge-pleasing flurries, but those are pretty much fluff shots with little power and accuracy. Those aren’t the shots that McCloskey has to worry about. He has to worry about Khan loading up on a right hand and looking to take his head off.

McCloskey can take Khan out of that game by going after him hard in the early part of the fight and get Khan running like he was in the Maidana bout. Khan’s legs will weaken in time and he’ll lose his power immediately. With Khan just looking to throw meaningless flurries to impress the fans and the judges, McCloskey will have a great chance to tag Khan with power shots to hurt him.