Khan vs. Barrera:
In early 2009, it was announced that Khan would fight against Marco Antonio Barrera on the 14th of March, who was a former seven-time and three-weight world champion. Frank Warren promoted Khan’s fight against the veteran Barrera, may be Khan’s highest-profile opponent up till now. Barrera was ranked 1 and Khan 5 in the WBO world lightweight rankings. IBF and WBO lightweight title holder Nate Campbell was stripped of the belts after moving up to the light welterweight division and Khan’s promoter Frank Warren and Barrera’s promoter Don King forced the WBO to make the Khan-Barrera fight to a world lightweight title eliminator. Later on ,the world-title status was instead given to the fight between Juan Manuel Márquez and Juan Diaz, ranked #2 and #3 respectively by the WBO.
On 14 March 2009, at the MEN Arena in Manchester, England, Khan beated Barrera, by a technical call. The fight was stopped at the close of the fifth round because Barrera suffered from a cut within the first round, which resulted from a clash of heads. Barrer was in no position to continue the fight. The fight then went to the scorecards where Khan was ahead on all three (50–44, 50–45, 50–45). With victory, Khan defended his WBA International lightweight title successfully, and also won the vacant WBO Inter-Continental lightweight title.
Frank Warren was impressed with Khan’s performance that he announced a world title fight for him before the close of the year.
Khan also said on the fight that,
“I felt so completely easy that I felt like I was on a better level than him. The jabbing and patience – I felt so strong.”
Khan vs. Kotelnik:
On 18 July 2009, Khan took a step forward to the light welterweight division to fight Andreas Kotelnik at the MEN Arena in Manchester for the WBA light welterweight title. Khan won by 120–108, 118–111, 118–111. By this, Khan was considered the third-youngest Briton to win a world title, being 22 years old.
On 6 October 2009, It was confirmed that Khan would defend his WBA light welterweight title against undefeated Ukrainian American boxer Dmitry Salita, Khan being a practicing Muslim and Salita being an Orthodox Jew, the fight was pictured as a religious fight by the media, referring to the fight as a “battle of faiths”. Later, Khan and Salita denied such claims. On 5 December 2009, Khan beat his challenger Salita in just 76 seconds. Khan won by a technical KO in the very first round. Salita was knocked down three times, the first time after only ten seconds into the fight. It was the first loss of Salita’s career.
On 17 January 2010, Khan announced he had left British promoter Frank Warren and signed a deal with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions.
Khan vs. Malignaggi:
On 9 March 2010, Golden Boy Promotions confirmed that Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi would appear in a press conference to announce their world title bout set for 15 May at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. This was Khan’s first bout in the USA. Khan won the bout in the 11th round.
Just after the fight, Khan said he wanted to fight Marcos Maidana next. He said that he would not be leaving the light welterweight division until he had unified the various belts, and then will face the winner of Devon Alexander vs. Timothy Bradley match.
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