FightFranchise | Can Salita Dethrone Khan?

Tomorrow night at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, England, former 2004 Olympic silver medalist and new WBA light-welterweight champion Amir Khan (21-1-0, 15KO's) makes the first defence of his title against relatively unknown undefeated Ukrainian/New Yorker Dmitriy Salita (30-0-1, 16KO's).

Having captured the #1 ranking in the WBA's 140lb division, Salita has earned his chance the old fashioned way by getting himself into a mandatory contender position and leaving the WBA with no option but to sanction a title fight, but make no mistake, if Team Khan didnt think it was a fight they could win there would have been ways to avoid it.

In truth the match is something of a disappointment for the fans, who hoped Amir would face someone better known, but after losing to Breidis Prescott via brutal first round KO, Khan's promoter Frank Warren has matched the youngster relatively softly. Even Khan's last fight, against Andreas Kotelnik for the WBA title, was viewed by many as a smart move, as Kotelnik was quite possibly the weakest belt holder in world boxing.

This of course doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion; that Khan will win with ease. Salita is a well-schooled boxer with a lot of financial support behind him. Also we've never really seen Salita at this level before so there are questions that are still unanswered. A lot of those questions should be answered tomorrow night.

Khan, now training in L.A alongside Manny Pacquiao under the tutelage of Freddie Roach, would have everyone believe that he has improved leaps and bounds under his new trainer and has developed an entirely new and improved defence but whether there's any truth in the claims remain to be seen. With very real punch vulnerability issues Khan simply has to improve his defence however or he is going to get found out again sooner rather than later.

We can expect a good, snappy boxing match tomorrow night. Both men's styles are based mainly on speed, and with Salita's seeming lack of power, it may well be a distance fight unless Khan, still learning under Roach, can take Salita out of his comfort zone and swarm him with punches convincing the referee to step in. It seems highly unlikely that Khan can lose this fight however, and if he really has aspirations of fighting at the very top this is a fight he simply can't afford to lose.