By William Mackay: Golden Boy Promotions has picked a small and weak enough opponent for Amir Khan (26-3, 18 KO’s) in little 5’6″ Carlos Molina (17-0, 7 KO’s) that Khan should be able to look good in this fight scheduled on December 15th at the Sports Arena, in Los Angeles, California, USA. Khan is coming off of a 4th round knockout loss to WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last July.

This fight will make Khan’s new trainer Virgil Hunter look like a genius because Khan will overwhelm the small and light hitting Molina. It’s going to be easy because Molina is like a tiny army without weapons, and he’s going to be overmatched by the much bigger, faster and stronger Khan. But this fight won’t tell you anything about whether or not Khan is improving under his new trainer Hunter because Molina is the type of guy that Khan could beat no matter who’s training him. It doesn’t matter, because Molina doesn’t have the weapons or the size to really test Khan.

Hunter is a great trainer but I see him impact as being negligible. He won’t be able to turn Khan’s career around other than helping him beat guys that he could already beat without him. If anything, Hunter may end up hurting Khan because the confidence that Khan will be getting from having him as a trainer will soon cause Khan to try and trade with one of his future opponents and he’ll then get knocked out again.

Khan’s promoters at Golden Boy are likely to continue to match him against weak punchers in the future to maneuver him much in the same way they did Paulie Malignaggi, a fighter that would have no chance against the better welterweights in the division due to his complete lack of power. However, Golden Boy steered him into a world title by keeping him against guys they knew he could beat, and not matching him against dangerous guys like Andre Berto, Victor Ortiz, Mike Jones, Thomas Dulorme…etc.

Golden Boy will have to do the same with Khan if they want him to recapture a world title. The only easy mark among the light welterweight champions is IBF champ Lamont Peterson. That might be the direction they’ll try and steer Khan in unless Peterson gets beaten by his next opponent Kendall Holt. In that case, Holt will be the guy they likely try and position Khan to fight. I don’t see Khan getting put back in with Danny Garcia ever again because it’s clear that Khan can’t take his power.