By William Mackay: Breidis Prescott’s loss to Paul McCloskey (23-1, 12 KO’s) last night in Belfast, Northern Ireland had more significance than just the lost opportunity for Prescott to fight against WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana.

It also pretty much ended the 28-year-old Prescott’s dream of fighting a rematch against Amir Khan, who Prescott destroyed in one round three years ago. Prescott has wanted to fight Khan again ever since to prove that his win wasn’t a fluke thing, and of course to pick up more popularity by beating the highly hyped but badly flawed Khan.

Now, however, with Prescott’s narrow 12 round unanimous decision loss to McCloskey, that pretty finishes forever any chance of Prescott getting another fight with Khan. Even if he did win, it was very doubtful that Khan would ever fight him again anyway, as he recently said in an interview that it would be backwards step for him and that Prescott has to beat all the guys that he’s beaten in the last three years before he would consider fighting him again.

In other words, Khan wouldn’t interested in fighting Prescott again no matter what he did. But in losing to McCloskey, this gives Khan cover – an excuse – so that he doesn’t have to fight Prescott or deal with pressure from the media. It’s one more hard puncher that the weak-chinned Khan doesn’t have to worry about. Now if only McCloskey can beat Maidana, and that would knock off another hard puncher that Khan doesn’t worry about either.

I saw McCloskey-Prescott fight, and I think the decision was a bad one. I had Prescott winning the fight by his domination in the first eight rounds. To be sure, McCloskey came on in rounds nine through eleven to control the action, but he lost the 12th after getting hurt and I saw him losing the first eight rounds of the fight. It may have been a bad idea for Prescott to agree to the fight if it couldn’t take place in a neutral country like the United States.

Fighting in McCloskey’s home country of Ireland was in effect like giving him several rounds right off the bat in my opinion. In looking at the different views of this fight between people from the UK and elsewhere around the world, I’ve noticed overwhelmingly that the UK fans think McCloskey won the fight, while boxing fans from elsewhere saw Prescott winning.

The thing is the fans from elsewhere have no dog in this hunt and weren’t picking Prescott out of loyalty, because they don’t come from Colombia like Prescott. They just saw him as the better fighter. I’m the same way. I saw the guy as doing the far better work, landing the harder shots and then losing the fight to the hometown guy. It was a bad decision but it was Prescott’s fault for agreeing in the first place to fight McCloskey in Ireland. He should have said no, let’s fight in a neutral country.

If Maidana agrees to fight McCloskey in Ireland, I honestly think Maidana will need to knock McCloskey out to get the win. No way do I see him getting a decision over McCloskey, no way. If it comes down to it, I see McCloskey winning another controversial decision and becoming the WBA light welterweight paper champion. It would be sad but that’s boxing for you. McCloskey would likely reign as a champion until he’s forced to fight outside of Ireland, and then he’d get beaten by pretty much anyone he faces. He has no offense, doesn’t throw enough punches or hit hard enough to beat top 15 fighters, and he certainly didn’t deserve the win over Prescott last night. The decision was a joke.