By James Slater – It is getting quite hard now to avoid looking at the upcoming Amir Khan Vs. TBA situation as something of a farce. Khan has written on his Twitter page that he is about to start training for his next WBA title defence, scheduled for April 16th, yet the light-welterweight star has yet to find an opponent! So we have the situation where Sky Box Office have a date set, but unable to build up the fight or sell it to would-be Pay-Per-View buyers..
We have seen guys like Lamont Peterson and Paul McCloksey “price themselves out,” and we have seen other guys, such as Breidis Prescott and John Murray, made to wait on the sidelines, not sure if they will get the fight or not. And now, in the latest addition to the ongoing saga, we read in The Sun that former WBC 140-pound champion Junior Witter is the latest addition to Khan’s list of possible opponents for The M.E.N Arena in Manchester.
“Junior is on our list,” Shah Khan said. “He’s an ex-world champion who lost a split decision to Timothy Bradley , so no-one can criticise his pedigree.”
It’s true, Witter did lose a close one to Bradley, but that was back in 2008. Since then, 36-year-old Witter has quit on his stool against Devon Alexander, suffered a serious ankle injury out of the ring, and been out of action for over 16 months. Not only that, but “The Hitter” has, in his own words, outgrown the light-welterweight division.
Witter was a guest on last Thursday’s Ringside show on Sky Sports, and he said he will fight now as a welterweight (he is set to return in Canada this month, against Victor Puiu). So, unless Witter has a change of heart and decides that he can boil down to 140-pounds one more time, he will not be taking the April 16th fight. But if Witter doesn’t face Khan then who will?
Time is seriously running out for Khan and his team. McCloskey’s side say they were offered “an insulting” amount of money; Khan’s side say he was offered a career-high payday. Either way, McCloskey is out of the running. So too is Lamont Peterson. Live on Sky this past Saturday, Khan himself spoke about facing Michael Katsidis, Murray or Prescott instead.
“You have to remember, Paul McCloskey is not a Pay-Per-View fighter,” Khan said (although had the Irishman accepted the fight he would have been on Pay-Per-View in April!) The 24-year-old then said he’d fight Prescott again “if it made financial sense.”
We are now into February and we have no idea who Khan will be fighting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a rematch with Prescott makes the most sense, is the most attractive of the options Khan is looking at, and would probably be the easiest fight of the lot to make.
But now Khan is looking at fighting an inactive, welterweight in Junior Witter! At this rate, this particular Box Office event could well become a disaster.