Khan’s next fight needs to be against a quality opponent

By Boxing News - 02/20/2014 - Comments

khan5655By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) may need to fall back on his plan B option that he was talking about for his next fight in April or May. It appears to be almost academic that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to go in another direction for his May 3rd fight by facing WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana next. That’s got to hurt Khan, but it’s not like he actually deserved the fight with Mayweather.

If you’ve been sitting around doing nothing like Khan has for the past 10 months, it’s not like you would deserve to share the ring with a talent like Mayweather. As such, it’s time for Khan to start fighting guys with a pulse once again instead of the fodder he’s been in with in his last two fights. It’s sad to say but the last good opponent that Khan fought was against Danny Garcia back in July of 2012. Heck, that’s ages ago. Khan might as well have been retired for the last two years, because you can’t count his wins over Carlos Molina and Julio Diaz as being meaningful victories.

Okay, so Khan needs to take a risk for his next fight, and that means he’s going to have to face one of the following opponents to make himself look like a more worthy opponent for Mayweather: Adrien Broner, Lucas Matthysse, Breidis Prescott, Lamont Peterson, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Kell Brook, or Devon Alexander. I think the best of that bunch would be Matthysse, Prescott, brook and Thurman. If Khan can beat one of those guys, then Mayweather might consider him as a worthy opponent. Honestly, Khan will probably need to beat someone like Thurman or Matthysse to get Mayweather to fight him in September because the other guys on the list are too flawed, coming off of losses or just not well known enough.

Golden Boy Promotions needs to be firm with Khan by telling him the straight truth that he’s probably not going to get a fight against Mayweather in the future if he keeps fighting fodder. It’s okay to fight one fodder opponent after you get whipped the way that Khan did against Garcia, but definitely not two week ones. The boxing public was well aware that Julio Diaz had seen better days at the time that Khan fought him last year in April and beat him by a controversial 12 round decision, so it’s not as if fans were seeing it as a real win over Diaz. I mean, I had Diaz beating Khan in that fight and I thought it was a major robbery in London. I would have like to have seen how that fight would have been scored if the fight had taken place outside of the UK.

I’m sure Khan would fight Adrien Broner if the fight were offered to him, but it’s probably not going to happen. It would be a great fight, to be sure, but Broner wants to fight Maidana again to try and avenge his loss from last December. Broner will make the same mistake that Khan did after his loss by staying inactive.



Comments are closed.