By William Mackay: With Amir Khan’s career teetering on disaster after back to back losses to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia, Khan’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya incredibly sees Khan only a mere one or possibly two wins away from a mega fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
While a lot boxing fans think that Khan’s chances of a Mayweather Jr. fight went down the tubes with his 4th round TKO loss to WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last weekend, De La Hoya is stubbornly persisting in thinking the fight is still just around the corner.
De La Hoya said to Espn.co.uk “I believe the Mayweather fight isn’t dead as Amir Khan is a tremendous boxer and tremendous puncher. We get him another win or two wins and he’s back in the picture because of his talent and qualities. Amir Khan will be back.”
I think De La Hoya is dreaming.
I would agree with De La Hoya if they were interested in having Khan fight one or two really good fighters that would surprise the boxing public. But the chances are that Golden Boy Promotions is going to put Khan back on the soft diet of lesser fighters that he was on after he got stretched by Breidis Prescott in 2008.
The boxing public isn’t going to be fooled by something like that, and Mayweather will be left attracting all the interest against a fighter that still won’t have been properly rehabilitated in the minds of boxing fans. The only way it’ll work is if Khan faces Garcia in a rematch, and destroys him. And then after that, Khan defeats someone like Lucas Matthysse in another one-sided fight.
The problem with this is Khan will probably get knocked out by both Garcia and Matthysse if they put him with them. At the point there won’t even be a question of Golden Boy putting Khan in with Mayweather, because boxing fans won’t go for that. De La Hoya needs to see things in a more realistic way to understand how bad off Khan is right now. He’s not someone you can count on beating any decent fighter in the top 10, and with the knockout he took in the Garcia fight, he may not be the same fighter.
If Golden Boy matches Khan against one or two more quality fighters, I see Khan heading for journeyman status or retirement.
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