[Big Ears]

First of all Earl doesn't have a belt , Jon Thaxton is the British champ and imo a better fighter than Earl .

Second Romanov would be a much tougher fight than Earl .
Yuri was very inactive at the time of his fight with Earl , he lost the early rounds due to rust and grew as the fight went on . He rocked Earl badly on a few occasions and I think if he had been more active he would of stopped Earl . In the end I still had Romanov a 1 point winner .

Earl fought the fight of his live and had a good style to cope with Romanov , if you compare how the two dealt with slick fighters(using a fighter both have fought in Vanzie) then Romanov comes out much better .

Romanov dropped Vanzie 5 times on route to stopping him in 8 rounds , where as Earl fought him twice and won two controversial decisions .
Earl has more wear on him , his chin isn't that great and he isn't that much of a puncher either(usualy stopping people on accumulation) and he isn't the most accurate or slick fighter himself(as shown by him getting schooled by Burns) .

It makes sense fighting Earl now , it's a fight which Khan can win and win looking very very good(probably better than Katsidis did) . I very much doubt he'd beat Romanov though .