By William Mackay: If WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (30-2, 27 KO’s) had his way he would be fighting Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) next or at least before the end of the year. Khan is scheduled to fight on December 10th, but he’s made it abundantly clear that he wants no part of fighting Maidana again after taking a terrible beating from him last year in December.

Khan instead is interested in facing Maidana’s recent victim Erik Morales, 35, who is clearly on the downside of his career. Morales is fighting for the vacant WBC light welterweight title on September 17th against Lucas Matthysse, and he’ll likely lose that fight unless he can get a questionable decision. Khan probably won’t want to fight Matthysse, though, because he can punch.

But Maidana still won’t get the fight with Khan because the British fighter will then most likely fight his IBF light welterweight mandatory, Lamont Peterson, who can’t punch. If Maidana can’t get a rematch his adviser Sebastian Contursi told ESPN that Maidana would take a rematch with Erik Morales or Timothy Bradley if he wants to fight.

Maidana beat Morales by a 12 round decision in April, and Morales has been making a lot of noise about wanting a rematch ever since. I can’t see the outcome being any different because Morales just doesn’t throw enough punches to beat a guy like Maidana. If anything, the fight will be will one-sided with Morales taking another beating. He looked terrible after the fight with Maidana last time. I can only imagine how bad he’ll look in a rematch.

Khan seems to be looking for the soft route before moving up in weight next year. Boxing fans want to see Khan fight Maidana or Briedis Prescott again, but Khan seems to be mainly interested in the old guy Morales, who is fighting several divisions above his best weight and isn’t the same fighter he once was.

Maidana likely will get none of those guys to fight him anytime soon if ever. Maidana is fighting on September 16th in Argentina and he’s looking to get the best possible opponent to fill that date with him. His previously scheduled opponent for August 27th, Robert Guerrero, badly injured his left shoulder and will be out for some time. This is more than a little disappointing for Maidana, because he wanted to beat Guerrero and use the victory to put more pressure on Khan to fight him again. Now Maidana will have to settle for a likely bottom feeder for his September fight and that’s not going to be enough to get boxing fans to pressure Khan to take the Maidana fight.