Warren doesn’t blame Khan for not taking the Maidana rematch

By William Mackay: IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s former promoter Frank Warren says he doesn’t blame Khan for not opting to take a fan-friendly rematch with Marcos Maidana. Khan instead is eyeing the winner of the Lucas Matthysse vs. Erik Morales fight on September 17th for the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) light welterweight title.

Warren points out that if Khan captures that title, he would have three of the four light welterweight titles. The only title he wouldn’t possess is the WBO belt held by Timothy Bradley.

I suppose Warren is right if you look at it in terms of collecting belts that can be talked briefly mentioned by the sports analysts on television and listed in front of Khan’s name in articles, but I see that as being kind of empty and without meaning. That stuff doesn’t mean whole lot to the casual boxing fan. They’re more concerned with seeing fighters in exciting and competitive fights. That’s what makes them want to watch a certain guy. It’s not the collecting of paper titles that gets fans interested.

I mean, you match Khan with paper champions one after another or a handful of weak punchers like Paulie Malignaggi and Paul McCloskey, and no one really cares. But then you put him in with a guy can punch and actually fight like Maidana, and you get the fight of the year. Khan got a ton of popularity from that one fight alone in the U.S. He didn’t get much from the McCloskey, Malignaggi and Judah fights, even though he did capture Judah’s IBF title. So you see, winning titles is meaningless.

I think it’s a terrible idea to put Khan in with an old Morales, and I don’t care if Morales beats Matthysse by a controversial decision. If you’ve got the option of putting Khan in with Maidana and/or Breidis Prescott, who already knocked Khan out, then those are the fights you should be putting him in with to make him a more popular fighter. You don’t put him in with more old guys. That’s a mistake because the casual boxing fan will see a boring one-sided fight and who cares about that? They won’t think Khan is great because he’s beating up on an old Morales. You can see Morales is old just by looking at his waist. He’s got visible flab hanging over his belt. He’s not young and it’s painfully obvious.

Khan talks 24/7 about wanting to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr., but I don’t think he deserves the fight, not with the guys he’s been fighting. Look at who Khan has fought in the past couple of years: Andriy Kotelnik, Paulie Malignaggi, Paul McCloskey, Maidana, Dmitriy Salita, Marco Antonio Barrera and Judah. Malignaggi, Kotelnik, McCloskey, Barrera and Salita had no power to speak of. Only Maidana had power, and he almost knocked Khan out. I think he would have if not for the referee continually breaking the action when Khan was badly hurt in the last three rounds. I never seen anything like that before. Maidana trying to finish Khan off and the referee interrupting the action. Khan should be fighting Maidana and Prescott again, and guys like Mike Alvarado.

Also, Khan needs to stop pushing down on his opponent’s heads when he fights. I think that is just as bad as throwing low blows. He does it all the time and in his last fight with Judah, Khan shoved Judah’s head down with his left hand and then tagged him with a right to the beltline with his other. That should have been penalized in my view. The referees working Khan’s fights need to stop him from the shoving and pulling down of his opponent’s heads because that move is illegal.

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