By Eric Thomas: The much talked about July 23rd unification bout between WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) and unbeaten WBC/WBO light welterweight champ Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 Ko’s) appears to be in jeopardy before the fight has even been signed, as Dan Rafael is reporting that Bradley prefers to take lesser money to fight someone else rather than take the fight with Khan. This can mean a number of things. Either the offer made to Bradley for the Khan fight wasn’t big enough for him to feel that the bout is worth the risk involved or Bradley wants to let the fight grow interest by letting it marinate by facing other opponents first.

Bradley recently said as much in an interview not long ago, saying it didn’t matte if the fight happened now or later because later it would be a bigger fight. It does seem too early for the fight to take place because Khan still doesn’t have much of a following in the U.S. and has faced only a small handful of fighters on HBO. Khan has fought Paulie Malignaggi, Marcos Maidana and most recently Paul McCloskey on HBO. That’s only three fights, which is hardly enough to make Khan much of a star in the U.S. The Khan-Bradley fight would be better off taking place next year after Khan has faced three or four more top fighters.

Here is what Rafael said on his twitter: “Been hearing Tim Bradley’s camp balking at Amir Khan. Supposedly rather take less $ from Gary Shaw [his promoter] than offered 4 [for] Khan to face someone else.”