By Allen Fox: IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) sees himself fighting unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) within six to nine months’ time after Khan moves up to welterweight.
Khan said this to the Guardian: “The fight [against Mayweather] will happen definitely. It’ll happen within the next six to nine months. I can see a lot of things in my armory that would beat Floyd. He will take a lot of shots and he will get beat. Floyd Mayweather is beatable. I think definitely he’s beatable. Because of the money involved, it could never be here [in the UK]. There’s too much money in America. America is 50 times bigger than England.”
It’s likely that Khan is selected by Mayweather to fight because Floyd is running out of interesting easy options, and Khan is no threat to him but is a fighter that HBO is very high on right now. HBO is banking that Khan can be one of the next big stars in the welterweight division. However, as of now, Khan seems to be light welterweight version of Andre Berto. At best, we’ll probably see Khan pick up a paper title and milk it against carefully matched opposition until one of them beats him in an upset. But let’s be clear about Khan and Mayweather.
Khan stands no chance of beating Mayweather, and he doesn’t have the tools in his tool box to beat him. The Khan-Mayweather fight is just going to be a payday fight for Khan where he’ll likely be beaten even more convincingly than Victor Ortiz was last weekend. The best Khan can hope for is if he doesn’t get dominated too much. If he can look good in losing, he’ll remain an HBO, and we’ll likely see him go after a paper champion so that he can have a title to defend. That’ll give Khan an aura authenticity. However, I suspect he’ll be matched softly for the next two or three years until someone really popular is found to put Khan in with. It will then be like the Mayweather-Khan fight again with Khan likely losing.
Khan really shouldn’t be looking over his shoulder for a fight against Mayweather right now because Khan still has a fight coming up against his IBF mandatory challenger Lamont Peterson on December 10th. Peterson could surprise a lot of people by knocking Khan out. It’s not likely, but he’s definitely a better fighter than Khan’s last two opponents Paul McCloskey and Zab Judah. And Peterson might even be better than Marcos Maidana, who Khan struggled badly against last December in getting hurt by him.
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