Boxing: Khan faces biggest test in March date with multiple world champion Barrera

(PA)

Amir Khan will meet the Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera on 14 March, the promoter Frank Warren announced yesterday.

Securing a fight against the seven-times, three-weight world champion – regarded as a modern great – is a coup for Warren. Barrera has won 64 of his 71 fights and, at 34, has plenty of miles on the clock, but he remains a formidable opponent and the biggest test of Khan's 20-fight career to date.

Winning his first world title in 1995, Barrera has faced Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales in a record that includes a unanimous points win over Naseem Hamed in 2001. Khan bounced back from his brutal 54-second knockout by Breidis Prescott last September with an impressive two-round demolition of Oisin Fagan last month.

The 22-year-old lightweight dispensed with his trainer Jorge Rubio after the Prescott defeat, his first professional loss, and is now being guided by Freddie Roach.