By William Mackay: WBA Super World light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) specifically is mentioning the 34-year-old Erik Morales (52-7, 35 KO’s) and Lamont Peterson (29-1-1, 15 KO’s) for his next and possibly last fight at light welterweight in December.

However, the chances of Khan fighting Morales in December are remote at best, as he’s facing a quality fighter in Lucas Matthysse on September 17th for the World Boxing Council (WBC) light welterweight title that was stripped from Timothy Bradley.

Morales probably won’t win that fight unless it’s by one of those controversial type decisions. I could see that happening unfortunately. Morales is the bigger name compared to Matthysse, so, yeah, if the fight is even slightly close, Morales will win. I don’t see it being close, though. Sad that Khan doesn’t want to fight the hard hitting Matthysse if he wins.

If Morales gets beaten by Matthysse, then the light hitting Peterson will likely be the one that gets the call from Khan. Peterson has little in the way of power and tends to slap with his punches, which takes away any kind of power that he might have if he would punch properly. Peterson just went life and death with Victor Cayo and scored a 12th round TKO last week to become Khan’s IBF light welterweight mandatory.

Although he’s the mandatory for Khan’s IBF title, it’s not up yet. Khan can still fight who he likes without worrying about having the IBF strip him. But obviously if Khan were to be fighting the light hitting Peterson, it would likely be because he’s not of a threat, because it wouldn’t be because of his popularity. Peterson doesn’t have a huge following. Boxing fans don’t flock to his fights and he doesn’t get huge ratings.

He’s just a light hitting fighter with good basic skills, but who has problems when facing really good fighters. Timothy Bradley totally dominated him by a 12 round decision two years ago, and last year Peterson got a 10 round draw against Victor Ortiz. I thought it was a really bad decision. I had Ortiz winning that fight, as he controlled it and had Peterson on the deck twice in the 3rd.

Khan said this to the BBC Radio Manchester: “Morales is fighting for that title in September so if he wins, Morales could be an option. The IBF I’ve just won, the mandatory for that is Lamont Peterson so maybe that could be a possibility.”

Missing in all of this is the winner of the Marcos Maidana vs. Robert Guerrero fight on August 27th, Matthysse and the winner of the Breidis Prescott vs. Paul McCloskey fight. Guerrero, Maidana, Matthysse and Prescott are all hard punchers, and much more of a threat than the light hitting Morales, who fights in brief spurts nowadays due his advancing age, and Peterson. There’s next to no risk for Khan against Peterson and Morales, whereas against Maidana, Guerrero, Prescott and Matthysse, Khan would be in great danger of being knocked out. It looks like Khan is playing the safe route again. It seems to be those guys are much better options for Khan – and for the boxing public – than to see Khan face an old depleted Morales or a paper punching Peterson.