By William Mackay: Breidis Prescott (24-2, 19 KO’s), ranked No.2 by the WBA, will be fighting Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) in a World Boxing Association light welterweight title eliminator bout on September 10th at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Prescott, 28, is well known in the United States for his fights on ESPN and for his 1st round knockout loss of Amir Khan three years ago.

Prescott overpowered Khan and made it look as if he were beating up a weak amateur fighter. Khan has shown little motivation to avenge the defeat, and has come up with an excuse to not fight Prescott again after Prescott was beaten by Miguel Vazquez and Kevin Mitchell. Prescott has changed his game since then and is more of a boxer/puncher in the Wladimir Klitschko style rather than the slugger he used to be. If Prescott beats McCloskey, he will become the mandatory challenger for the August fight between Marcos Maidana and Robert Guerrero, both of which will be fighting for the WBA “regular” light welterweight title.

The question here is whether Khan will finally show the desire to try and avenge his loss to Prescott if Prescott not only beats but destroys McCloskey in September? It’s going to put a lot of pressure on Khan to fight him if Prescott obliterates McCloskey in three or four rounds, because Khan struggled to land punches against McCloskey in his win against him last April. If Prescott is able to do beat McCloskey with ease it’s going to make boxing fans question the status of Khan bragging that he’s the best fighter in the light welterweight division.

Khan will have a hard time convincing fans that he’s the top guy if Prescott is mowing down guys that he struggled against and with Prescott already holding a win over Khan. An impressive win by Prescott over McCloskey will undercut Khan’s argument that he’s the best fighter at 140, because if he was the best he should be able to beat a guy like McCloskey with ease and in a better fashion than Prescott.