Khan to fight on July 7th in Anaheim; no opponent yet

By Boxing News - 05/21/2012 - Comments

Image: Khan to fight on July 7th in Anaheim; no opponent yetBy William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA Amir Khan has finally gotten a locatiofor his next fight on July 7th. Khan will be fighting in Anaheim, California against an opponent still to be determined.

Khan was supposed to have fought a rematch against IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson last Saturday night in Las Vegas, but Peterson tested positive for synthetic testosterone and that wiped out the fight.

Khan and his promoters at Golden Boy are tying to set him up against one of three possible opponents: Danny Garcia, Erik Morales or Marcos Maidana. As of now, none of those opponents are in the position to agree to a fight against the 26-year-old Khan. Garcia, the WBC light welterweight champion, made it clear he won’t bother fighting Khan unless he can get his IBF and WBA titles back so that the fight can be a unification bout. For that to happen, the IBF and WBA will have to strip Peterson of his titles, but its hard to make an argument that he should have them stripped when he tested negative for performance enhancing drugs before the bout.

Morales is being eyed for a fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on July 14th, so he won’t be available if that fight takes place. Besides that, Morales was just beaten by Garcia, and it won’t exactly be an interesting fight having Khan facing an opponent coming off of a loss. I’m sure Khan would be more than happy to fight Morales, because he would be adding an old name to his resume and some casual fans that don’t realize that Morales is best his best could give Khan credit for beating Morales. Unfortunately, Morales is 10 years past his prime and it won’t prove anything by Khan beating him other than he can beat a shot fighter who’s fighting three divisions above his best weight class.

Maidana just started training camp last week, and to get him to take a fight with Khan off of a month of training isn’t something he’s agreeable to right now. He said he’d love to fight Khan but only if it takes place at the end of July not at the beginning. It looks like Golden Boy Promotions aren’t willing to budge with Khan’s July 7th date, so unless they give Maidana a ton of money to come into the fight out of shape, he’ll likely say no to the fight.

The other option for Khan is Devon Alexander. However, he’s a live body he’s probably too dangerous for Khan. This is perhaps why he’s not being mentioned more seriously. Alexander just easily beat Maidana, and that likely scared Golden Boy off because they obviously don’t want to see Khan beaten by anyone, especially before he gets a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., if he ever gets that fight.



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