By William Mackay: Amir Khan will be fighting WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (23-0, 14 KO’s) on July 14th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. As of now the only thing that’s known is that Garcia’s World Boxing Council title will be on the line.

However, Khan expects to be either given back his IBF and WBA light welterweight titles by the sanctioning bodies of have them vacant for him and Garcia to fight over. In other words, Khan thinks the current IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson will be stripped of his titles for testing positive recently in March well after their December fight.

Khan told Sky Sports News “I’ve heard rumors that they will come back to me or that they’ll be vacant for the next fight. If they are going to be vacant, that fight becomes an undisputed fight. Hopefully I’ll win that, clear the division and move up in weight.”
I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty crummy Khan getting excited about having Peterson’s titles stripped from him and basically turned over to him instead of Khan facing Peterson and trying to beat him. Peterson defeated Khan last December and exposed him as a fighter that can’t fight on the inside or handle heavy pressure. Khan ended up running and fouling from the 4th round on. Eventually he lost a couple of points for the fouling and was given credit for a bogus knockdown. All in all, it was a really poor performance from Khan, and that’s what makes it all the more strange that he would want to get his titles back outside of the ring instead of inside it by facing Peterson again.

I don’t agree that Khan will “Clear the division” if he beats Garcia. Khan still has to beat Peterson, he still has the tainted win over Marcos Maidana in which the referee broke up the action over and over again when Khan was taking a pounding in the last three rounds, and Khan still hasn’t’ beaten Mike Alvarado. You can add Ajose Olusegun, Lucas Matthysse and Humberto Soto to that list. Khan can hardly say he’s cleaned up the division until he’s beaten those guys.