Visa problems aside, Amir Khan will make the journey to the spiritual home of boxing on Saturday, New York's Madison Square Garden, to take on Brooklyn-born Paulie Malignaggi.
One of two big fights this weekend featuring British fighters, the other being Kevin Mitchell's title fight at Upton Park against Michael Katisidis, more of which later, the bookies make Khan a 1/5 favourite to defeat the New York man in front of his own fans.
Malignaggi is a bit of a slapper, by which I mean to say he doesn't punch very hard not that he's loose of morals, and the facts bear this out. Paulie has won 27 of his 30 fights but only five of those wins came by way of knock-out. Having said that, he's a pretty durable fellow and came out of two tough fights against Juan 'Baby Bull' Diaz with his reputation enhanced. He has only been stopped once, by Britain's own Ricky Hatton back in 2008, and even that defeat went down in the record books as a 'technical' knock-out after his corner threw in the towel at the start of the 11th.
Hatton was nowhere near his best that night, but easily outclassed the 'Magic Man'.
I expect Khan to win comfortably but I wouldn't be surprised if brave Malignaggi refuses to go down easily in front of his own supporters and takes the fight to the scorecards. Sporting Bet's 13/10 about a Khan decision is the stand-out bet, with a saver on a Khan stoppage in rounds 10,11,or 12 at 13/2 with Bet365 advised.
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