By Jason Kim: Barry Hunter, the manager for light welterweight contender Lamont Peterson (29-1-1, 15 KO’s) is reportedly unhappy that there is rumors of IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) facing the winner of the September 17th bout between Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s), who is ranked No.3 by the WBC, and Jorge Barrios (50-4-1, 35 KO’s), a fighter that’s not ranked in the top 15 by the World Boxing Council at this time.

Barrios-Morales will be fighting for the WBC belt that was recently stripped from champion Timothy Bradley. According to an interview by Lem Sattersfield at Ringtv, Hunter feels that Khan should defend his IBF belt against Peterson, as he just defeated Victor Cayo to become Khan’s mandatory challenger. Khan hasn’t said who he’ll fight next but has listed his possible next opponents as Morales-Barrios and Marcos Maidana – Robert Guerrero winner.

Where Peterson is in bad shape in all this is that he doesn’t have a title and is merely a contender. Khan says he only wants to fight one more time at light welterweight before moving up to the welterweight division to chase bigger named opponent. It’s only natural that Khan will want to maximize the amount of money and accomplishment that he can attain before moving up, and obviously Khan facing either the Morales-Barrios or Maidana-Guerrero winner would be the better fight for him than to take on Peterson.

To be sure, Peterson is a good fighter, as he showed in beating Cayo and fighting to a 10 round draw against Victor Ortiz last year. However, he’s not as big a name as Morales, and doesn’t being the same kind of excitement that the winner of the Guerrero-Maidana fight would. This is why it’s highly unlikely that Peterson will get a shot against Khan unless Peterson moves up in weight to the welterweight division and tries to follow Khan.

That’s probably not going to happen because Peterson doesn’t have the build to fight at welterweight or the power. What Peterson will likely have to be satisfied with is fighting one of the other top contenders for Khan’s vacant IBF belt, when he eventually gives it up. Depending on who Peterson faces, he’ll have a good chance of picking up the IBF belt. With Khan out of the division, the IBF has only a handful of names that could give Peterson trouble like Lucas Matthysse, Mike Alvarado, Kaizer Mabuza, Zab Judah, Danny Garcia and Kendall Holt.