Bradley Skeete targeting Amir Khan in 2018

By Marcus Richardson: #3 WBO ranked welterweight contender Bradley Skeete (27-1, 12 KOs) wants to be Amir Khan’s comeback opponent when he returns to the ring in April of next years. That’s when the 31-year-old Khan says he plans on staging his long overdue comeback.

Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) has been out of action for almost 2 years since his knockout loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez on May 7 last year in a fight that took place at middleweight.

Khan says his April fight will be in the UK, which means he’ll likely be taking on a British fighter that the boxing fans are familiar with. Will it be Skeete? We’ll have to see.

Skeete, 30, was passed over recently by WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn’s December 13th voluntary defense in Brisbane, Australia. Horn went with the lower ranked #10 WBO contender Gary Corcoran, and he had little problems stopping him in the 11th round in front of a large crowd of Australian boing fans.

“I believe Frank [Warren] offered them the fight but they obviously rejected it. He went in the jungle – that might’ve been why,” Skeete said on the BoxNation Podcast.

Skeete, 6’1”, isn’t the biggest puncher in the 147-lb. division, but he is wiry, hard to hit and rangy. He’s not an easy opponent even for a fighter that is active and in top shape. But for a rusty guy like Khan, who hasn’t been fighting frequently since 2012, it’s not the smartest move for him to take on a guy like Skeete. Khan ran out of gas in his last 2 fights against Saul Canelo Alvarez and Chris Algieri. If Khan were to fade against Skeete, he’d probably get knocked out by him too, even though he’s not much of a puncher.

Khan needs to fight someone that is out of the top 15 for his next fight, because he’s going to need to sharpen up his rusty boxing skills and improve his stamina. 5 years of fighting irregularly hasn’t worked wonders for Khan’s once impressive skills. At this point, Khan probably won’t be able to regain what he’s lost from his game. He’s 31, and he’s obviously not going to be the fighter he was when he was 26 and fighting often.

The only thing Khan can hope for is to get to 90 percent of the fighter he was in the past, and hope that his punch resistance has improved during his 2 years out of the ring.

”He’s coming back at 147, that’s a fight I’d love,” said Skeete about Khan. ”That’s a massive fight for the British public. He’s a world level fighter – that’s the level I want to mix at, so why not? I believe that’s a great fight. The likes of Amir Khan are good to test myself against.”

More than likely, Khan will take on a journeyman level fighter when he does fight again in 2018. A fighter like Skeete likely has no chance of ever getting a fight against Khan at this point.

Skeete has recent wins over Dale Evans, Shayne Singleton, John Thain and Alexandre Lepelley. Last year, Skeete beat Sam Eggington by a 12 round unanimous decision in a real war.