Kevin Mitchell will meet Breidis Prescott on December 5 in a lightweight title eliminator. (Photo via www.boxingdaily.co.uk)

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Terence Dooley reports that a WBO lightweight title eliminator has been signed for the December 5 Khan-Salita undercard. England's Kevin Mitchell will meet Breidis Prescott in the bout.

So let's go ahead and get yours and my first thought out of the way: Yes, Prescott lost his last fight, and no, he does not deserve to be battling for a title shot by any stretch of the imagination. Since the first-round stoppage of Amir Khan, Prescott has gone back to being woefully unimpressive despite the fact that his right hand is always dangerous. In February, Prescott fought veteran Humberto Toledo. He was beating Toledo easily but failing to thrill in the process before Toledo bit him for a 10th round disqualification.

Then in July in his second ESPN2 bout of the year, Prescott knocked down the 22-year old Vazquez in the first round, but then Vazquez came back to pretty thoroughly outbox the favored Colombian slugger.

Vazquez (25-3, 12 KO) isn't a name, though, and his upset of Prescott didn't make waves the way Prescott's knockout of Khan did, so I guess we're supposed to sweep it under the rug and forget about it. It's gross favoritism shown by the sanctioning body.

Promoter Frank Warren, who put the fight together, believes it's "the right fight":

"This time I’ve had time to study Prescott," Warren said. "Kevin needs a challenge and is capable of beating Prescott.

"Before Prescott boxed Amir I hadn’t even seen a tape of him, but the trainer and the team were keen on him, so I went along with it. I think Amir could beat him if he prepared right for him."

Meanwhile, the deserving Vazquez has to sit back and hope something comes along. The only losses on his record are to Saul Alvarez (twice) and Timothy Bradley -- not bad, huh? During that fight, Sergio Mora sat in at ringside and said he'd sparred with Vazquez and the past, and knew how good he was. Vazquez used tricky timing and a varied offensive plan to neutralize and frustrate Prescott, and in the end earned a hard-fought win.

But again, he wasn't supposed to do that, so he's ignored. What a crock.

Mitchell (29-0, 22 KO) does deserve this sort of fight. The 25-year-old from Dagenham made an official move up to lightweight this year after campaigning for a while at 130 pounds. He's a heck of a good fighter, really, one of the more promising in the UK. Like anyone, he needs to fear Prescott's right hand, but the more you watch Prescott, the more you realize he's a lot like countryman Edison Miranda. He's a lot of fear wrapped up in one punch, easily worked around by anyone who can box.

Andriy Kotelnik is hardly taking his wide loss to Amir Khan with grace. The former titleholder says he didn't feel he was beaten "by enough." (Photo via www.telegraph.co.uk)

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There's really no other way to put the headline, so I didn't even try. Andriy Kotelnik has broken out that old, dumb line of thinking about having to REALLY BEAT the "champion," which he feels Amir Khan did not do in his July victory over Kotelnik.

Said Kotelnik:

"If that bout had taken place in any other country, everything could have been different. I think that you have to be far superior to beat a champion, you must win convincingly. Amir Khan didn’t do it. It’s not the way you beat a champion. If we compare this bout to the ones where I had been given a draw, though I’d been much stronger, Khan didn’t show anything special. I wasn’t expecting such subjective refereeing. The judges gave all the rounds to Khan, I believe it’s unjust."

I know some boxing fans still think this way, but it's so ridiculous to me that I won't even bother again. We've discussed it before. I'll just say in short that thinking there has to be a designated margin of victory for someone to lose their "championship" is moronic. On another point, Kotelnik has had one draw in his career, against Souleymane M'baye in 2007, so I don't know what "ones" he's talking about where he was given a draw.

Anyway, the bigger point here is really that Kotelnik was completely dominated by Khan. Official scores were 120-108, 118-111 and 118-111 for Khan. Bad Left Hook scored it 118-110 for Khan. The fight was not close at all. Kotelnik did nothing to Khan, whose speed and jab kept Kotelnik from ever getting out of the starting blocks in the fight, and when it appeared clear to everyone on earth that Kotelnik needed a knockout to win the fight, he never even tapped Khan's chin. Khan outboxed and outsmarted him for 12 rounds, and he did so with relative ease.

You know why the judges gave the rounds to Khan? Because he won them. Kotelnik apparently believes Khan should have fought stupider, which of course might have given him a chance to win. Instead, Khan fought a clean fight, dominated him for 36 minutes, and won. I've seen nobody argue this decision at all. Khan won, Kotelnik lost, and this is sour grapes from a fighter who was left frustrated, without his title, and back at the drawing board, routed by a superior physical specimen.

Kotelnik currently has nothing scheduled. Khan faces Dmitriy Salita on December 5 in the UK.

Dmitriy Salita will be Amir Khan's next opponent. The two face off for Khan's WBA junior welterweight title on December 5 in Newcastle. (Photo via www.boxnews.com.ua)

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Amir Khan will defend his WBA junior welterweight title on December 5 in Newcastle against Dmitriy Salita, as has been the rumor for a couple of months now.

Khan (21-1, 15 KO) won the title from Andriy Kotelnik with a dominant decision in July, and almost immediately the Salita fight was discussed. Both fighters have openly discussed it for months, as if the fight was a given, and now it's signed.

Salita (30-0-1, 16 KO) has been beating journeymen for years now. Most last saw him on the Calzaghe-Jones undercard, winning what was sadly the fight of the night against Kansas club fighter Derrick Campos. He also has wins over guys like Ruben Galvan, Grover Wiley, Raul Munoz, and Rocky Martinez, and drew Ramon Montano for his record's only blemish in 2006.

Chances are Khan is too fast and too dynamic for Salita, much as he was for Kotelnik. Salita is a solid boxer, but nothing special and has no great attributes. That said, if he gets in and tags Khan, anything can happen. Worse punchers than Salita have put Khan on the canvas in his pro career.

Tickets are going on sale tomorrow for those in the UK that are interested in attending the fight live.