By Eric Thomas: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions acknowledges that Ireland’s Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) deserves to get a rematch with WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) after their fight last weekend was stopped prematurely in the 6th round after McCloskey, 31, was cut from a head clash above his left eye.

In an article at irish-boxing.com, De La Hoya said “Obviously everyone is going to want a rematch, of course they will, but right now I have plans to bring Amir Khan back to the States to unify the titles. Does Paul deserve a rematch, yes he does. Yes, Paul deserves a rematch, but we have plans. Paul will continue to do well, but we are going to America next. We are going to have the fight the whole world wants to see Timothy Bradley versus Amir Khan.”

De La Hoya sounds like he’s getting a little carried away with himself. The Bradley-Khan fight might be interesting fight with diehard boxing fans, but hardly a fight that the entire world is looking to see. Bradley is pretty much an unknown in the U.S with a small fan base. He’s not a pay-per-view fighter, so it’s a more than a little ridiculous that De La Hoya is talking about this fight being one that the entire world can’t wait to see. Believe me, they can wait.

The Bradley vs. Khan fight is more of an attention getter for both fighters. They’ll be able to build more fans with this fight in the U.S but will still be a long ways away from being a super star. The only way the winner of that fight will end up a super star is if someone like Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao decide to fight them. That’s probably not going to happen. Whoever comes out on top in the Bradley-Khan fight will just be another one of the many fighters that are shown on HBO in my view. I don’t see the winner as suddenly being a PPV star.

McCloskey was just unlucky. He happened to get a cut and the referee and ringside doctor were a little quick in stopping the fight. The way the fight was going he probably would have been stopped in another one or two rounds at best, so it might have been a good thing that the fight ended at that point. At least this way McCloskey can claim that he might have won and still hold his head high. He wouldn’t have had any such excuse if the fight were to have continued.