By Mark Vester

Promoter Frank Warren thinks WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan will send the wrong message by avoiding a fight with mandatory Marcos Maidana. Khan and his trainer Freddie Roach don't think the fight is big enough right now and want to wait it out. Golden Boy Promotions, who recently signed Khan and currently promote Maidana, are looking to build the fight up. The WBA may force the issue. If they do, Khan is likely to vacate the belt. If Khan vacates, Warren says he should have done it against Dmitriy Salita.

"If he's going to drop it, he should have done it against Salita because that was a fight nobody thought would be hard for him. Maidana will be a much tougher proposition than Sailta, so it will look like he's running," Maidana.

"It just seems to be the people around him saying they don't want Maidana. Freddie Roach pretty much said Maidana doesn't mean anything and he needs to build himself up. But I find that quite a strange quote as Amir's never been shown on American TV. Maidana, on the other hand, knocked out Golden Boy's Victor Ortiz on HBO! As a result, everybody knows him, so it's such a strange comment to make. The big fights are there for Khan, it just depends what direction he goes down."

Warren is offended with Khan's reasoning for leaving him. The British star told reporters that he wanted the big fights in America and had to go to Golden Boy to get those fights. Warren said a deal was already in place for Khan to unify with WBC champion Timothy Bradley.

"It's a bit galling when you hear people saying the only way he's going to get the big fights is by going with Golden Boy. That's a bit insulting, just like when people say that Naseem Hamed had to leave me to go to America," Warren said. "It's just garbage. I took Hamed to America and I promoted a show at Madison Square Garden before taking him to Atlantic City. I was the one who walked away when the contract came to an end, not him."

I've done lots of fights over there and I would have had no problem taking Khan to the States. It was in my plans and we even talked about it live on TV after the Salita fight. Maidana fighting Amir in America means nothing, at least as far as the gate's concerned. Over there it's just an Argentinian fighting a Brit, whereas here it would sell. Not only that, I'd already spoken to HBO and they were willing to broadcast the fight. I'd also agreed terms with Tim Bradley for a fight to take place over here and Showtime were going to show it in the States, so he had choices already."

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