By Sean McDaniel: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) is looking to defeat his hand-picked opponent Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) in an impressive overwhelming performance on Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England.

Speaking with the mirror.co.uk, Khan said “This will be a devastating performance from me because that is the only way to beat a fighter like Paul. After beating Paul there are a lot of big, big fights planned.”

That’s certainly good because Khan is quickly getting a reputation for being a cherry picker by some fans. They feel that Khan has to be dragged into the tough fights kicking and screaming. To be sure, Khan wasn’t eager to fight Marcos Maidana in his last fight, even through Maidana had been waiting for a year to get a shot at Khan.

It’s good if Khan is serious about fighting quality opponents after the McCloskey fight. However, if Khan’s version of quality are more fighters like McCloskey, then it will be hard to take Khan serious. He’s got to step up already and stay at the top level instead of dipping back down to lesser fighters. Technically McCloskey is ranked #5 by the WBA, but when you have a fighter that has never fought a 1st tier fighter in his career like McCloskey, it’s hard to agree with his inflated ranking by the WBA. If Khan is stepping it up after this he may start suffering defeats unless he takes on beatable fighters that aren’t much of a test. Khan barely beat Marcos Maidana in his last fight.