By William Mackay: Steve Kim is reporting that former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s next fight on December 15th could possibly wind up on Showtime instead of HBO, which is where Khan has been fighting regularly for the past couple of years. With his loss to WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last July, Khan’s contract with HBO ran out. There were reports that Khan possibly could continue fighting for HBO. However, we could be seeing Khan with Showtime instead.

The reason this is significant is because of the timing involved. Khan has been beaten in his last two fights and his career is at a crossroads where his next fight could us a lot about which direction Khan will go – further down or back up. It’s no secret that HBO doesn’t like to put on fluff fights for the boxing public. In other words, they tend to be very picky about the kinds of fights that they agree to have televised on their network. They’re a lot more selective about fights than they used to be, and it could be that Khan might have problems in getting his next opponent approved by them.

Khan has lost his last two fights and guys that are struggling like him often tend to fight fodder in order to get their confidence up. Well, HBO probably isn’t going to let Khan take an easy fight because it would be bad for ratings to server up slop. Khan has reportedly already had two fighters turned down by HBO – Humberto Soto and Joan Guzman.

Could it be that Khan is moving over to Showtime in order to have a better chance of one of his promoters picks for his next opponent approved? Would Showtime say yes to an opponent that HBO would turn down? That would be bad for boxing fans if Showtime is saying yes to opponents for Khan that HBO has already said no to. It would also be bad if Showtime televised mismatches involving Khan because it wouldn’t be good for the boxing public.

I’m hoping that if Khan is moving to Showtime, they’ll have just as high standards as HBO in regards to Khan’s opposition or any top fighters’ opposition. Boxing fans want to see competitive fights, not mismatches. If a fighter is struggling and needs some soft tune-ups to get their career back in the fight right direction, Showtime and HBO shouldn’t be televising those kinds of fights. They should be focused completely on competitive fights that boxing fans want to see. That’s how I see it. I’m sure Khan could use three or four easy fights right now to get his career back in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean that Showtime or HBO should televise those kinds of fights. We don’t need to see Khan fighting the likes Oisin Fagan or Paul McCloskey 24/7. That’s dead. HBO and Showtime should be like the big leagues of boxing. No easy fights should be shown on the network to keep the standards high. I know that’s probably bad for Khan, but it’s for the good of boxing.