By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) has been talking about wanting to move up in weight to the 147 pound division if he can’t get a rematch with Lamont Peterson, the current IBF/WBA light welterweight champion.

Since it’s starting to look more and more like Peterson isn’t interested in fighting Khan again, it’s put Khan in the situation where he’ll either have to stick it out at light welterweight and try and pick up another title at that weight or move up to the welterweight division to chase Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Earlier today, Khan told fightnews.com that he’ll move up to welterweight if Peterson won’t fight him again. I think that’s going to turn out to be a disastrous mistake for Khan if elects to make that move for a number of reasons. First off, Khan didn’t prove that he could handle the pressure from Peterson, who will never be mistaken as a knockout threat.

Khan couldn’t deal with Peterson’s power or his pressure and was forced to run and foul from the 5th round on. Khan may have speed and power at light welterweight, but in moving up a division to 147, I don’t think Khan’s speed and power will be a big deal at that weight. He seems to get flustered when met with resistance and starts to run.

When he’s moving a lot, Khan’s punches become little more than slaps and he’s not a big knockout threat. If he’s got a timid opponent like Zab Judah, who held back and let Khan dictate the pace, Khan can do well. However, Peterson and Marcos Maidana created the blueprint in how to beat Khan, and that’s by putting him under constant pressure from round one. Khan goes to pieces and starts running, holding, shoving and pulling down on his opponents’ head to escape the pressure with any means necessary. At welterweight, the fighters are bigger, stronger and are capable of walking through slaps.

Khan lost his whole reason for moving up to welterweight this week when Floyd Mayweather Jr. said that he thinks Khan holds and runs too much and that feels he should have been disqualified in his fight with Lamont Peterson. That shouldn’t be ignored by Khan.

What Mayweather is saying in not so subtle language is that he doesn’t see him as an interesting opponent because he doesn’t want to fight a guy that runs a lot like Khan. If Khan moves up in weight to chase Mayweather, he may be wasting his time and putting himself in great danger against the stronger fighters at this weight. Khan can’t just fight scrubs at 147. For him to be respected, he’ll have to fight quality guys and those types of fighters will probably beat him. I think his trainer Freddie Roach needs to sit him down and try and drive some truth into his head to save him a lot of trouble and humiliation.

At 140, Khan is a big fish in a small pond, but at 147, Khan will be just another guppy swimming around in a large fish bowl getting eaten up by the bigger fishes. Khan never even fully proved himself at 140. His win over Marcos Maidana was tainted by the referee Joe Cortez constantly breaking the action when Maidana was trying to finish a badly hurt Khan off in the last three rounds. Khan never fought Timothy Bradley, Mike Alvarado, Lucas Matthysse and Humberto Soto. I’d like to have seen how Khan would have done against those guys.