Amir Khan's first defence of his world light-welterweight title against Brooklyn's unbeaten Dmitriy Salita is fast approaching.

Our boxing season's been so busy lately, from the domestic dust-ups like Ryan Rhodes's thrilling win over Jamie Moore to the superstar performances of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Now the Pac Man's stablemate is our next major focal point.

King Khan: Amir is now one of the top dogs at the Wild Card

Amir Khan has had a ferocious few weeks training Stateside, broken only by a whistle-stop 48-hour press tour of Britain, when he came head-to-head with Dmitriy Salita for the first time.

While crack trainer Freddie Roach was guiding Manny's early preparations in the Philippines, Amir set up camp back at the Wild Card Gym, under the watchful eyes of Freddie's team of assistants like Jesse Reid and Jesse Arevalo (Michael Moorer was politely asked to leave the establishment due to major conflict with some of the fighters).

Roach returned to LA with Pacquiao towards the end of October, so Khan will have had a good six weeks with his mentor. I arrived in America on November 8th - the day after David Haye became world heavyweight champion - and Amir was really buoyed by the wonderful news for British boxing.

Ambitions

As usual in the frenetic and hectic Wild Card, Khan engaged in tough sessions. Roach says he uses 'real' sparring partners, who have their own career ambitions. For the Salita clash, he had selected a 17-year-old, Jose Benevidez - a 2009 Golden Gloves Champion - for plenty of work.

Benevidez is a hot prospect, who Freddie is extremely excited about. He's tall, wiry, possesses a massive reach for a lightweight/light-welterweight and looked as though he could really hit. The youngster still has plenty to learn, and is a little flat-footed, but provided excellent sparring for Khan. He reminded Amir's dad, Shah, and myself of Breidis Prescott!

The second main sparring partner was David Rodela, who's worked with Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao, and has a positive 14-1-2 record. Amir had plenty of tough spars with the pair of them, as he worked on defence, speed, and notably - body shots.

Rodela rates Khan highly, and there were several other fighters who were suitably impressed. The Wild Card always has colourful characters, young and old, and there's plenty of noise and amusing chatter. My visits there remind me of that hysterical scene in the barber's shop in Coming To America. So many opinions flying about!

The usual fascinating personalities were hovering around, like Columbo (aka Shane), who Freddie saved from the streets, and now sweeps the gym and sleeps there at night, from Manny Pacquiao - the world's best - to reformed addicts. Freddie Roach is an amazing human being who is rather like a very, very kind Fagin. They all flock to him.

Protagonists

Some of these gym rats held the fort while the main protagonists hit Las Vegas for the Pacquiao-Cotto week. We enjoyed quality time with Amir whilst the main attention was on his rather more famous stablemate.

I travelled with Amir on that barren drive through the desert, and it was great to hear him talk about how proud he is to have become a world champion, and how desperate he is to star in Las Vegas one day.

Tune in on Friday Fight Night to see our special report on Amir's Stateside preparation...

We're in Nottingham to see if the interesting Rendall Munroe story will continue to roll on. The popular Leicester bin man defends his European super-bantamweight title for the fifth time against the former world-title challenger Simone Maludrottu.

We know the Italian well from his fights with Damaen Kelly and Ian Napa. He's a solid, seasoned and tough operator, but Munroe is fresher, so fit, and will have a sizeable physical advantage on the night.

It should be an excellent, competitive European battle, but I expect Munroe to come through - probably on points - and to inch closer towards a dream world-title shot.

Could Munroe join David Haye, Carl Froch and Amir Khan as one of our world champions next year?

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