By William Mackay: Former WBA World welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko did his part by stopping Ricky Hatton last Saturday night in the 9th round, and now it’s Amir Khan’s turn to see if he can get past little 5’6″ Carlos Molina (17-0, 7 KO’s) in their fight on December 15th at the Sports Arena, in Los Angeles, California.

Khan needs to win this fight to move forward to a potential match against Senchenko next year, unless of course Khan’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions decide to look for a little safer fight at 140. Senchenko already said that there was talk of him possibly getting the fight with Khan if he were to get past Hatton.

Senchenko definitely got past Hatton in flying colors, and now its’ Khan’s turn to try and beat back a smaller, weaker, and much more inexperienced fighter in Carlos Molina on December 15th. If Khan can beat Molina and look good in doing so, we could see Khan and Senchenko battle it out.

This would be kind of a revenge bout because Khan is really good friends with Hatton, and he in a way would be doing Hatton a favor by taking on Senchenko and blowing him out of there. It would still be a risky fight for Khan because Senchenko obviously hits harder than he looks. Hatton would certainly attest to that after getting knocked down and out by a left to the body. Senchenko really wasn’t loading up with his shots until he landed that hard body shot that Hatton wasn’t ready for.

Molina has got to make it a war against Khan to have any hope of winning the fight. He’s not going to be able to beat Khan by sticking around on the outside and letting Khan dictate the action all night long. Molina has got to go after Khan in a big way early before he gets hit hard by one of Khan’s shots and knocked out.

Molina could get lucky with a big hook in the first few rounds if he comes out fighting like Danny Garcia did last July when he knocked Khan out in the 4th round. That wasn’t a fluke thing like a slot of boxing fans thought it was. Had the punches landed on Khan’s head rather than his neck, I still think Khan would have been badly hurt.