By William Mackay: Unless WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan changes mind about moving up to the welterweight division in the near future, he may have to settle for only unifying the WBA and IBF titles if he can beat 34-year-old Zab Judah, who looks to be Khan’s next opponent in July. Khan wanted to take on WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley next, but the money that was offered to Bradley was hardly worth him bothering to take the fight. Bradley was offered $1.2 million to fight anyone, no matter who, and only $1.3 to fight Khan.

This means that Khan will have to go after the hard hitting Judah next or else give up on his dream of unifying the light welterweight titles and just move up in weight. Khan is really barking up the wrong tree if he moves up to the welterweight division because the fighters up there are both quick and powerful. The main advantage that the 5’10” Khan has had at light welterweight is that he’s bigger than most of the good fighters at this weight, except for Breidis Prescott.

If Khan were to move up to welterweight, he would not longer have the size advantage that he did at light welterweight and would have to figure out another way to be successful. Khan wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. but the fight is so premature at this point it’s not even funny, because Khan is still almost totally unknown in the U.S. The fight would sell because of Mayweather it would be like Mayweather fighting an obscure fighter where he would be the sole person bringing in fans.

Khan wouldn’t bring in fans other than the hardcore boxing fans on the U.S. Thus far, Mayweather hasn’t shown the slightest interest in wasting time on a Khan fight. This means Khan could move up in weight and find himself battling unknown fighters that could beat him and add another knockout loss to his resume unless they really cherry pick opponents carefully like they’ve been doing.

Khan needs to stick around the light welterweight division for a while if he wants to unify all the titles and even then it’s big ask for him to beat Bradley.