HBO's Rejection of Witter Led To Khan-McCloskey

By Phil D. Jay

It was anounced on Saturday that WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan had finally reached an agreement with an opponent for his fourth world title defence on April 16th at the MEN Arena in Manchester, with Paul McCloskey putting pen to paper after lengthy negotiations.

It was thought that former WBC champion Junior Witter was in pole position, but he was rejected by American TV network HBO as a credible opponent, which allowed the undefeated Irishman the chance to re-negotiate the terms he had already scoffed at.

Khan, 24, will be relieved to finally have a challenger inked for the clash in late spring and will hope to inflict the European champion’s first defeat in 23 bouts, when the pair meet in an Irish-English battle, to be shown on Sky Box Office.

The former Olympic silver medallist has just one loss his 25-fight record and will look to face newly-unified champion Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley in the United States this summer, to try and add the WBC and WBO belts to his WBA version.

Phil D. Jay covers the boxing scene for worldboxingnews.net