On November 27th brave challenger Michael Katsidis gave a good account of himself inside of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada as he attempted to wrestle away the WBA and WBO lightweight crowns from Mexico City’s Juan Manuel Marquez. Despite being stopped in the ninth round, the rugged Australian would register a scorching knockdown in third and repeatedly put his neck on the line in one of the year’s best fights. Katsidis was dealing with the emotional turmoil that came after the apparent suicide of his brother Stathi just weeks prior and he gained a lot of respect in the boxing community for finding a way to go through with the fight.
Two weeks after the Marquez-Katsidis bout, WBA junior welterweight chamopion Amir Khan produced a classy victory as he dropped Argentinean challenger Marcos Maidana in the first round before weathering a late storm and hanging on to capture a unanimous decision victory. Khan absorbed some huge blows from Maidana and was able to answer questions anyone had about his courage or lack of ‘chinmanship’.
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Interestingly enough, after taking some time to regroup, Team Katsidis let it be known that Khan was one of their next options moving forward.
“I believe that [Khan-Katsidis] is a fight that would absolutely fill anywhere in England, and that’s a fight that would be watched all over the world and it makes a great fight,” Brendon Smith, manager to Katsidis, would tell the AAP. “At the moment Michael is taking a little bit of time with his family, of course to grieve, but at this stage we’d like to set [the fight] for April or May.”
While Katsidis and his crew seem to be on board for a fight of such magnitude, Khan doesn’t appear to be a willing dance partner. Updating his followers from his personal Twitter account earlier today, Khan cleared the air on the Katsidis rumors.
“Just for your information I aint fighting Michael Katsidis and we aint even got him in our mix,” the champion stated.
Khan returned home to his native UK just ten days ago after spending the past three months in various loacations in America, with a brief training stint in the Philippines nestled in between. The British superstar appears to be on course to defend his belt against American challenger Lamont Peterson sometime in April in England.
Chris Robinson is based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. He can be reached at [email protected]
