By Eric Thomas: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) is looking to take on WBC/WBO Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) next on July 23 after beating Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) by a 6th round technical decision last Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England. Khan may have won the fight but he failed to shine in the fight, looking sloppy, missing punches and tiring out slightly by the end of the fight. After the bout, Khan said “There are levels in boxing and Bradley is the same level as me. We’re in the world class level.”

Khan pointed this out when asked if he would give McCloskey a rematch to clear up the controversial ending of the fight. The bout was halted after a head clash in the 6th. However, the cut wasn’t bad at all it’s unknown why the ringside doctor decided to stop the fight so quickly rather than allow it to continue to the end of the round so that McCloskey’s cut man could try and stop the bleeding.

Khan will have to fight better to beat Bradley, because he was throwing a lot of punches that missed and had little power on them. Khan was lucky to rarely get hit in the McCloskey fight. Part of that reason was because of how slow McCloskey’s hand speed was. He simply couldn’t land with any regularity because of how long it would take for his punches to get to where Khan was. Also, Khan’s constant movement prevented McCloskey from being able to land his shots. He rarely had a stationary target and even when Khan was standing right in front of him, McCloskey wouldn’t always pull the trigger to try and land anything. Khan did a good job of keeping his guard high and picking off the rare punch that McCloskey would throw.