McCloskey the fans' favourite, Khan the bookies' favourite

Amir Khan might be an overwhelming favourite with the oddsmakers for his WBA light-welterweight title defence against Paul McCloskey at Manchester's MEN Arena tonight but a poll on BoxRec shows the fans are behind the Ulsterman.

Khan is currently a best price of 1/8 to win the contest which basically makes it a non-event betting on an outright winner, unless you're incredibly rich and probably daft.

One would have to put down eight grand to win four figures back and, as the old gambling adage goes, if you've got the eight in the first place you probably don't need the one.

But a poll on the British forum of BoxRec.com shows that the majority of fight fans want McCloskey to come out on top.

At the time of writing, 148 people responded to the poll question 'Khan v McCloskey - Who do you want to win?'. Almost two-thirds (65%) plumped for Dudey as opposed to 35% for the champion.