By Sean McDaniel: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) may not be fighting in England anytime soon after this Saturday’s fight against the little known Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England. Khan isn’t happy that Sky Sports decided to move his fight off of PPV and put it on Sky 3, which isn’t PPV. Khan’s fight with McCloskey will still be shown on PPV, though, because Khan moved his bout off of Sky completely and switched it to Primetime PPV. However, he’s not happy that Sky didn’t keep it on PPV.

Speaking with ESPN, Khan said “I’ve always said from day one that there is more money to be made for me in America if fought there, but I chose to come here and fight live in front of my own fans. That’s just me. I just wanted to do that and put a fight on. But being a British fighter and having more support from American TV just shows that as a British fighter I should have had British TV supporting me more. I’m not going to say it could be my last fight in Britain because I think there are some big fights for me in Britain/ But I think it will be a long time until I come back again because while I want to have the big fights in England, it will be quite difficult to make them. I think they will probably be more likely in America.”

Khan’s fight with McCloskey isn’t a PPV fight in America either and it would likely do very, very poorly if HBO were to have struck it there. It make more sense for Khan to fight in America because his next opponent, if he gets by McCloskey, will be WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, who is an American. The other top fighters in the division are mostly Americans, such as Devon Alexander and Zab Judah. Khan probably won’t ever face them because he plans on moving up to welterweight and going after Floyd Mayweather Jr., another American.

It’s a no-brainer for Khan to be fighting in American right now because the big money fights are here and HBO is paying him big money betting that Khan will become a big PPV star someday. It’s a big gamble because Khan looked to be on the verge of being knocked out in his last fight against Marcos Maidana last December. Although Khan won the fight, he took a savage beating in the last three rounds of the fight and hardly looked like future PPV star material. Khan looked like someone that could be beaten at anytime. That’s not someone that gives you a feeling that he’ll be able to win important fights against the likes of Mayweather, Andre Berto or some of the other top welterweights. The welterweight experiment will likely end in utter failure for Khan unless he picks out weaker, more beatable opposition when he moves up in eight. I don’t see Khan beating Berto nor do I see him even getting close to winning a fight with Mayweather.

The only fight in England for Khan would be a bout against someone like Kell Brook right now. That would be a dangerous bout for Khan because Brook can punch and is a better boxer than Maidana. Khan could lose that fight, but it probably wouldn’t be a huge bout for him either because Brook isn’t a huge star yet. Khan is too small to fight James DeGale, so that fight can’t happen unless Khan can use his pull to get DeGale to melt down to a catchweight of 154. DeGale would likely knock Khan out unless he was too weakened by the catchweight.