De La Hoya: Sees Khan as a “Promoter’s dream”
January 18th, 2010
By Nate Anderson: Former boxing great Oscar De La Hoya, the founder of Golden Boy Promotions, is ecstatic about his recent signing of WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan with his promotional outfit. De La Hoya thinks that he can make a huge star out of Khan in the United States and around the world. De La Hoya says “Amir Khan is one of the most talented fighters in the world at any weight. That talent combined with his charismatic and outgoing personality, makes him a promoter’s dream and I feel will one day lead him to being the face of boxing.”
Khan says “I’m ready to fight anyone, anywhere, anytime and know that Golden Boy will help me accomplish these goals.” Hopefully, this means that Khan will be fighting World Boxing Association interim light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana, because that’s the fight that many boxing fans were looking forward to. Some fans feel that Khan will chose to duck Maidana because he’s a huge puncher and would have a good chance of stopping Khan if given the chance.
Maidana already destroyed another Golden Boy prospect Victor Ortiz last year in a 6th round stoppage win. It would be great if Golden Boy Promotions give Khan the go ahead to fight Maidana, but that remains to be seen. Maidana punches really hard and would be a dangerous opponent for Khan, who was knocked out in the 1st round in 2008 by Breidis Prescott.
A fighter that Golden Boy might be agreeable to fighting Khan is Ricky Hatton, a recent 2nd round knockout victim by Manny Pacquiao. However, Hatton sounded less than positive about fighting Khan in a recent interview this week.
Khan is hoping to become a huge star in the United States. It’s possible that he can achieve this even if he doesn’t take on dangerous punchers or necessarily the absolute best in every division. Today’s mega stars often skip around divisions, picking and choosing beatable fighters and often staying away from dangerous fighters that have a good chance of beating them.
Khan can be managed like that and could still become a star like Floyd Mayweather Jr., and it probably wouldn’t matter to the average boxing fan if Khan never fights a huge puncher for the remainder of his career. Just as long as he looks good in beating what’s put up in front of him is what counts.
Tags: 27 Responses to “De La Hoya: Sees Khan as a “Promoter’s dream””
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amir khan needs to destroy maidana to become pound 4 pound boxer in the world. Amir khan needs to dodge maidanas powerful shot which freddie will be working on………Good luck amir
what about kevin mitchell who out boxed prescott, khan as improved a lot since then and is only going to get better with golden boy p
Since top rank and golden boy are having big disputes at the moment i cant see Khan fighting anyone from top rank….. if i was to make a guess i would say that golden boy will put Khan in with one of his young guns.
Maybe a fight with Ortiz to catapult him back into the big time or maybe Lucas Matthysse 25 fights 23 ko’s or possibly Nate Campbell….. dont be supprised if Khan is getting fattened up for the kill lol
Mr Rich I think he is has been signed up for three fights don’t quote me on it though not 100% certain.
Mr Rich,
I agree with you. I have also struggled to see this “skilled boxer” that everybody keeps talking about. The only tape i could work with was the Kotelnik one.
Even in this fight i saw more negatives than positives in Khan’s boxing abilities.
I would appreciate if any Khan could direct me to fight that showed more than Amir’s hand speed.
ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME… start with Maidana in March so. If he ducks his first defence of his world title then what kind of a joke is he, its just frusrating to listen to him being hyped by himself and others yet running away from his very first obsticle to bigger things. Some (not all) Khan fans are blind to his cherry-picking, most boxing fans just want him to either prove his GREAT ability or get knocked out trying which would get him more respect. The best thing that could happen is for Khan to vacate his title and get ko’d by Malignaggi- what a laugh it would be.
he’ll be a promoters nightmare when maidana knocks him the f- out
khan will get beat as soon as he gets nailed u cant build muscles on ur chin .hes good but thats his downfall if u cant take a dig u wont b champ long.all real champs could take a dig .u can pray to allah all u want that wont save him .
I wonder how many fights he is contracted to fight under GBP’s. Would love to see Oscar pair him up with Victor Ortiz.
Istiaq Mohammed,You need to get your tong out of Amir back side,all so calling Ricky Hatton what you did is a disgrace and shows what a true boxing fan you real are.Khan has so far led a sheltered career yes he show a lot of promise but is still untested having been fed selected low powered fighters,And yes the fans are sceptical and will remain so still he fights higher rank fighters and proves he’s got what it take at the top!!!he’s got to step up to the plate sooner or later because so far its been a bit of circus show with all the hand picked low risk fights so far.
if khan doesnt fight his mandatory then he ought to hang up his gloves. will kahn be staying with roach?
@ Phoocquiao
can you explain why he shouldnt be in the ring with world beaters? he has a belt, he should defend is, not vacate it because he wants an easier fight.
“Today’s mega stars often skip around divisions, picking and choosing beatable fighters and often staying away from dangerous fighters that have a good chance of beating them.”? Was that a general obversation, or did you have someone specific in mind? If so, might his name rhyme with `sunny weather` by any chance?
Bad news for Khan who has just signed up with a company in very poor shape with things looking little better for the future.
All you haters need to realise Khan is the best thing since sliced bread.
de la hoya did take some hard shots to the head in his time!
After only 23 fights, you can’t expect the guy to be thrown into the ring with world-beaters. Expect him to have about 2 more fights before they thrown him in with any real threat. Especially after he took the first round loss.
De La Hoya’s words were simply the words of a promoter. You can’t expect the guy to say that Amir has a suspect chin or anything like that. a promoters job is to build up a fighter.
@ Lou
haha….i agree that Khan is a cherry picker but i cant agree about de la hoya lol
he was an animal in his day and faught Prime mosley, trinidad, vargas, hopkins mayweather and pacquiao…..so you cant say that dude. his losses to trinidad and mosley were close. wont give him credit for chavez though as he was past it.
Khan definately not in golden boys class and never will be.
Mr Rich He’s gone to one of the best Cherry Pickers. Delahoya when he was young fought guys who were washed up or knock out by Trinadad so he will be taught well in the art of cherry picken. Floyd will teach him as well.
roach has tightened khans defence and with the ability khan has to execute a game plan i think he will outbox and overwhelm maidana, the khan with roach now is completely a different man
i think khan will wait and see how hatton does in his next fight and if its a poor display will push for a fight with him then,i hope he gets it to cause i believe hatton would ko him,he cant take a punch plain and simple,
He will come up with some bulls**t about how Mallinaggi is a better fighter and that their will be more money in that fight and all that rubish.
truth is he dont want to fight someone with a 92 percent knockout ratio.
Mallignaggi may well be a better technical boxer than Maidana but he is also the safer option.
Personally i hope this move blows up in his face. Even with a poor 16 percent knockout ratio i think Mallignaggi is more than capable of knocking Khan out. And if he cant take Mallignaggi’s punches his boxing career really is doomed.
Golden boy want to hype Khan and get him eventually in the ring with Vctor Ortiz
Is that Khan talking or some writer? If it is true of what he said that he is ready to fight anyone he just lied to the media already. What I read is that he is not fighting his mandatory fight with Maidana.
The real reason why the K brothers are boring is because they play safe even if it is clear that they are physically superior and better trained then their opponent they don’t step the game up by challenge themselves to made boxing interesting or exciting for fans and non fans to appreciate the sports. They are there just to win fight no longer entertaining the people who is fueling the industry.
@ Stevo
Regarding khans chin, people go on about it because its true. He has a weak chin plain and simple…..Sure, Prescott caught him with a shot that probably would have knocked out anyone, but he also wobbled him with a jab for Christs sake.
And Khans been put on the canvas a few times by people with know real punching power to speak of.
And please explain why we should all be behind him? lol
Speedo:
Because everybody knows they have a real big chance against Khan!
There’s no fun in boxing if the outcome is already clear before the fight starts… then you simply could handle it off on paper. That’s the reason the K brothers are concidered boring, you know the outcome, after a ferocious beating for 9 or 10 rounds the opponent will crumble and another hypejob is down the drain. Punchers have a really big chance against Khan because of his chin, so it’s a real challenge. Khan is pretty quick and quite technical so a light puncher poses not to big of a treath to Khan.
Do you really wanna see a onesided boring fight, or do you wanna sit on the edge of your seat knowing one big punch can suddenly end it?!
What’s with the obsession of having Khan fight a ‘big puncher’ – i don’t understand why people specifically want him to fight maidana, velero and prescott.
None are true boxers all are knockout artists – so what’s the real agenda here!!!!
Bradley, Alexander, JMM, Diaz, Malinaggi – now these are boxers and good ones