The junior welterweight division is hot. It's loaded with a variety of interesting, exciting and marketable fighters and matchups. At the top there's titleholder
Timothy Bradley, who looked awesome defending his title last week in dismantling
Lamont Peterson, another quality young contender who should be back in the hunt before too long.
There's also young American titleholder
Devon Alexander, who has skills, speed, a bright smile and a brighter future. From England, you have fast and powerful titleholder
Amir Khan, a tremendous talent who has looked very good in recent fights, including a 76-second destruction of
Dmitriy Salita in his first defense on Dec. 5. Khan is the linchpin of the division because he brings the most money, by far, because of his big following in England.
There is also slick former titleholder
Paulie Malignaggi, who is already back in the gym doing some light training after a decisive decision win against
Juan Diaz in their Dec. 12 rematch.
Add in titleholder
Juan Urango, big puncher
Marcos Maidana, former titlist
Kendall Holt, prospect
Victor Ortiz and the old guard of
Ricky Hatton (the former champ with perhaps a big fight or two left),
Nate Campbell and lightweight champ
Juan Manuel Marquez, who likely will fight at junior welterweight against Hatton in the spring, and you have a stacked division that should produce several good fights over the next couple of years.
One of the biggest fights at 140 pounds (or, in defense to Khan, 10 stone), would be Khan against Malignaggi next year at New York's Madison Square Garden. Khan has said repeatedly that he intends to fight in the United States in 2010 and Malignaggi promoter
Lou DiBella hopes to make the match.
"We want that fight. Paulie wants a big fight," DiBella told me this week. "It would be an unbelievable event for Kahn's American debut. It's perfectly conceived of because of the personalities, styles and geography. Khan wants to fight here. Paulie is a New Yorker and is as hot as he's been. I have no doubt the fight does 15,000 people at the Garden. They both can fight and they both can talk and promote."
DiBella said the fight has come up in his conversations with HBO, which hopes to put Khan on for the second time on March 6 from England as part of a split-site doubleheader with Alexander defending his belt from a venue in the U.S.
"It is not lost on HBO how big Khan coming to America and fighting Paulie in New York would be," DiBella said.
He should know about such matters. After all, it was DiBella, when he used to run HBO's boxing franchise, who engineered a similar scenario in 1997. That's when he signed England's
Naseem Hamed to an HBO contract and brought him to Madison Square Garden to defend his featherweight title against New Yorker
Kevin Kelley, who talks almost as much and as fast as Malignaggi. Hamed-Kelley was a great promotion and turned out to be one of the best fights of the 1990s. Hamed won via fourth-round knockout and launched himself to stardom in the United States.
"A Khan fight with Paulie is the same type of situation. You have a young British star coming here to challenge the more established American and to see if he can create star power in this country in one night," DiBella said. "After a fight between Khan and Paulie, one of those guys comes out of the fight a huge star. It's a terrific matchup. There will be the threat of Khan's power and of Paulie's speed, which I think a bit exceeds Khan's.
Freddie Roach [Khan trainer] says Khan will fight him but he knows it ain't an easy fight.
"I love the Khan fight for Paulie. It reminds me so much of the set up with Hamed and Kelley, but Paulie is fresher than Kelley was. It has the making of a really big event if we can put it together."
I couldn't agree more. And the best part? It's only one possibility in a hot division that boasts so many exciting possible fights.
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