Khan’s options down to Pablo Cano for April 20th fight

By Boxing News - 01/29/2013 - Comments

cano54By Scott Gilfoid: With Vyacheslav Sencheko and Humberto Soto scratched off the list for Amir Khan’s next fight on April 20th, it’s now down to only one candidate in 2nd tier welterweight Pablo Cesar Cano (25-2-1, 19 KO’s) to fill the bill. Cano just lost his last fight against WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi by a questionable 12 round split decision last October, and he was also was stopped by Erik Morales the year before in the 10th round in September 2011.

Cano vs. Khan is a tune-up type fight, maybe a shade better than Khan’s last mismatch against the unranked lightweight Carlos Molina, but not much. I’d really be surprised if Showtime said yes to a Khan-Cano fight because that’s not a quality fight, and I don’t think for a second that HBO would have said yes to a fight like this.

When you’re talking about putting Khan with a 2nd tier, unranked fighter with 2 losses in his last 5 fights, that’s not my idea of a competitive fight between two world class fighters. If Showtime is alright with Khan fighting Cano, instead of a highly ranked contender, then that’s their problem. Showtime already got a rotten deal in the first fight of Khan’s multi-fight contract with them when he was allowed to fight Carlos Molina.

If Khan is given the okay to fight Cano, then that’s going to be really sad because it’s not a competitive fight and Cano isn’t even ranked. Oh, I’m sure one of the sanctioning bodies will come to Golden Boy’s rescue take care of that by the time Khan and Cano step inside the ring on April 20th. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cano pushed all the way to a top 5 ranking, but that cover up the fact that this is a terrible fight.

It’s too bad IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) is fighting on February 22nd against Kendall Holt because if that fight wasn’t happen or if were to take place in January, it would give Peterson enough time to possibly get ready to fight Khan in April. But right now the fight is way too close to the April 20th date, and the chances of Peterson getting cut and/or taking a lot of punishment against Holt is pretty high. It would be asking a lot of Peterson to try and get him to get back in the ring in less than two months just so that Khan can get an opponent that Showtime will agree on.

If I’m the top executive at Showtime with the power to say yes or no to Khan’s next fight with the network, I’d say no if Golden Boy tries to trot out Cano as Khan’s next opponent. You’ve got to do better than that. We’re talking about Khan potentially fighting another unranked fighter if he faces Cano, and I’m not even beginning to discuss whether Cano can even make 140 because I don’t think he can.

Cano looked like a middleweight against Malignaggi, and I don’t think he could get down to 144 or whatever dreadful catchweight that Team Khan were to ask for in order to face him. Cano is like a bigger version of Carlos Molina. In other words, Khan would be getting another non-risky opponent to fight on Showtime in a one-sided fight. I don’t know if that’s what Showtime had in mind when they signed Khan up to a fight deal.

If they’re going to let Khan fight anyone he wants, then they’re not going to get much for their money and the U.S boxing fans that are going to be watching this fight will get very little in the way of product from their subscription with the network.

If you’re a boxing fan that subscribes to Showtime just so you can see boxing, you might start having second thoughts about whether it’s worth it if you’re seeing mismatches between Khan vs. Molina and Khan vs. Pablo Cesar Cano in main event fights. I see those fights as bottom of the card, the ones that don’t make it on television because of how one-sided they are.



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