Roach: Khan can be the next Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 07/24/2011 - Comments

By Jason Kim: Amir Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach is very excited about his future after Khan’s 5th round stoppage win over IBF light welterweight champion Zab Judah last Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Roach, who also trains WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, believes that Khan can become the next Pacquiao and follow in his footsteps as a huge mega star and Pound for pound #1 fighter in boxing.

It’s a bit much, though, because Khan, after all, just beat a guy that arguably should have lost his fight against Lucas Matthysee and looked on the verge of losing his last fight to Kaizer Mabuza when he got lucky.

Roach obviously is hoping that Khan will be the next Pacquiao, but it’s hard to say he will, because the last decent fighter that Khan fought was Marcos Maidana and Khan didn’t look good in that fight.

The Judah fight isn’t really special because Judah hasn’t looked good for so long. Khan basically had an old fighter in front of him to make him look good. The things will be different if they put Khan back in with Maidana, Breidis Prescott or the Robert Guerrero.

“In my mind he can be the next Manny Pacquiao, there’s no doubt about that,” Roach said at sportinglife.com. “I think he can succeed Manny as the next pound-for-pound champion.”

Khan won’t be able to become the next Pacquiao unless he starts facing better opposition in more exciting fights. The Judah and Paul McCloskey fights were boring and one-sided affairs.

Khan should have never wasted time fighting the little known McCloskey. That was a bad idea that came back and bit Khan on the backside, because he looked bad in the fight and boxing fans didn’t care about it in the U.S.

The Judah fight was against aging fighter that wasn’t much of a threat. If Khan wants to be the next Pacquiao, he needs to take on Guerrero, Prescott, Maidana, Lucas Mattaysse or Timothy Bradley. However, Khan’s promoter Richard Schaefer only wants Khan to fight one more time at light welterweight, and has mentioned Erik Morales as the opponent.

That’s not going to make Khan the next Pacquiao. It’s going to make Khan look like a cherry picker, because Morales is way past his prime and there is no demand for this fight. That’s like serving up another McCloskey fight. It won’t be exciting and it won’t increase Khan’s stature with boxing fans.

Whatever the case, Schaefer will likely be making that fight and then Khan will be moving up in weight to take on Floyd Mayweather Jr or Victor Ortiz. Those are un-winnable fights for Khan, because he doesn’t have the skills to beat Mayweather and doesn’t have the chin to beat Ortiz. It surely won’t make Khan the next Pacquiao if he’s getting dominated by Mayweather and knocked out by Ortiz.



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