By Mark Vester

According to promoter Frank Warren, there was a verbal deal in place for Amir Khan to fight then WBO/IBF/WBA lightweight champion Nate Campbell. To make the fight happen, Campbell would have needed to beat Ali Funeka on February 14 and Khan would have needed win his March 14 bout with Marco Antonio Barrera. Both fighters came through and won their bouts, but the deal went out the window when Campbell failed to make weight for his fight with Funeka.

The WBO title became vacant when Campbell failed to make weight and Funeka failed to beat Campbell. Juan Manuel Marquez won the vacant title when he stopped Juan Diaz on February 28. Since Marquez is set to make a move to junior welterweight, the title will become vacant again and Warren hopes that Khan will fight for the vacant belt since he beat Barrera, who was rated at number one by the WBO. If that doesn't work, Warren may deal with King for a fight between Khan and WBA "regular" champion Paulus Moses. 

"The deal I did with Don King was that we were going to go with Nate Campbell," Warren said on Setanta Sports News. That was verbally agreed. It was a shame when he failed to make the weight that all went out the window. Amir beat Barrera who was the WBO number one contender so I’m hoping he’ll go into the WBO spot now. Whatever happens within the next nine months, Amir will fight for a title and I’ll be focusing on the WBO route."

"If another opportunity arises I’ll look at it. I haven’t spoke to [Don King] about Moses. I’ve spoken to Philippe [Fondu, Moses' manager]. He’s got to be one of the options. Over the next week or so we’ve got to start making decisions. I’ve always had faith in Amir and I thought he would always have too much for Barrera. He's had two fights with Freddie under his tutelage and just under three months training with him. No one can deny that his defense is much more tight. It showed on Saturday that Amir had worked on it. He was looking a lot more physically mature as well."

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