By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) has signed a new four-fight contract with Golden Boy Promotions that will carry Khan through some of the most critical fights of his career. Unless Khan is spoon fed opponents like his last one Paul McCloskey, Khan’s career may be in a tailspin by the time his four-fight contract has ended. First off, Khan, 24, has a fight coming up against WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) on July 23rd.

The fight will be shown on HBO and Primetime. The Khan-Bradley fight is a toss-up fight now. You can’t look at Khan’s recent fights against Marcos Maidana and McCloskey and see him winning the fight without struggling badly. Khan could possibly get beaten by Bradley. In which case we may see Khan’s subsequent fights against weaker opponents like the ones he fought following his 1st round KO loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008. Hopefully, Khan would at least finish the contract back to fighting quality fighters.

If Khan beats Bradley, then he will either move up in weight to welterweight or try to unify the titles at that weight. For Khan to unify the belts, he’ll have to beat the likes of Victor Ortiz, Jan Zaveck and Vyacheslav Senchenko. He won’t likely fight Manny Pacquiao, the WBO champion, because he’s a close friend of Khan and the two have said previously they wouldn’t fight. Khan may also stay at light welterweight to fight IBF champion Zab Judah before moving up in weight.

My guess is Khan will get beaten by Bradley in his first fight of the new Golden Boy contract and then fight his next couple of bouts against older toothless lions and work on his confidence while at the same time getting boxing fans to watch him fight in the UK. By the 4th fight of the contract, Khan will step up and face a contender at light welterweight like Lamont Peterson. That’s about as good as I can see happening with these next four fights.

They won’t match Khan tough if he losses to Bradley, because they’ll want to rebuild Khan to get him winning again. So depending on how badly Bradley beats Khan, he could be fed one, possibly two soft opponents before putting him in with a contender like Peterson. If Khan can win that fight, they’ll go after one of the paper champions like Judah rather than risk putting Khan back in with Bradley and seeing him knocked out or beaten on points again.