Amir Khan Upcoming Opponents King khan will fight by July 31
Fresh on the heels of his successful American debut, WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan is looking at future opponents as he looks to capitalize on his new-found notoriety after stopping Paulie Malignaggi at Madison Square Garden on May 15. Several media sources are reporting that Khan’s management team is eyeing Juan Manuel Marquez as his next marquee opponent later this year.
Khan’s promoter Richard Schaefer told The Times that Khan’s next fight could come as soon as July 31 in the UK - the same night that Marquez takes on Juan Diaz in Las Vegas. According to Schaefer, the two fights could be combined into one PPV card from the two different locations, with Khan fighting the winner of the Marquez vs. Diaz fight.
Who Khan will be fighting in July remains a mystery. After his win over Malignaggi, Khan was asked about the potential for a fight against hard-hitting Argentine Marcos Maidana and Khan responded that he would be up for the challenge and wanted the fight to happen. Many experts have speculated that Khan’s management team had hand-picked Malignaggi as the opponent for Khan’s American debut because Malignaggi is notoriously light-hitting and they wanted to protect Khan. Questions about the chin of Khan have been raised since he was knocked out less than one minute into his fight against Breidis Prescott in 2008.
However, it appears unlikely that Maidana will be the next fighter on Khan’s plate. The Argentine fighter pulled out of his scheduled fight against Timothy Bradley for the WBO junior welterweight title on July 17 because of recurring back problems, meaning that it is likely that he won’t face Maidana (the interim WBA junior welterweight champion and a mandatory opponent) until 2011.
One name that has been thrown around as a possible opponent for Khan in July is Michael Katsidis. The Australian is in fine form after defeating top prospect Kevin Mitchell with a third-round TKO on May 15 in London to defend his interim WBO welterweight title. Unlike the light-hitting Malignaggi, Katsidis has good power in both hands. However, he is three inches shorter than Khan and also slower. It’s likely that a fight between the two would look very similar to Khan’s fight against Malignaggi, as he was able to use a significant reach advantage to pepper his Malignaggi with stiff jabs while forcing him to eat punches if he wanted to come inside.
With his height and natural size, it’s apparent to many people that Khan will eventually work his way up to welterweight or higher. However, in his post-fight interview Khan insisted that he would be staying at junior welterweight until he unified the title. While this talk might easily be dismissed in many instances, in this case there might be some merit to it. Khan needs to prove that he has the chin to take punches from legitimate junior welterweight knockout artists (like Maidana) before he can think about moving up to welterweight. Simply put, Freddie Roach and his management team can only protect Khan from knockout punchers for so long.
It also appears that the politics of boxing might actually work in the favor of the junior welterweight title being unified. Both Maidana and Khan are handled by Golden Boy Promotions, reducing the number of logistical hoops that need to be crossed through in order to make a fight happen. And both Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander - the other two top champion fighters in the division - have expressed interest in fighting each other with the winners of the two fights squaring off for a unified title. HBO also has the resources and contracts lined up to bankroll this “mini-tournament” - which would essentially be a smaller version of the Super Six World Boxing Classic that is being put on by Showtime.
While there are several potential roadblocks to this happening, it’s clear that this type of mini-tournament could be exactly what boxing fans are looking for.
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