Amir Khan to face Luis Collazo on Mayweather-Maidana undercard on May 3rd

By Boxing News - 03/24/2014 - Comments

collazo6By Scott Gilfoid: As I already reported, Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) will be facing former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) on May 3rd on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana fight card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Khan-Collazo fight was announced today.

I didn’t think they were going to match Khan up against someone dangerous for this fight. Collazo is a safe fight for Khan to keep him winning, and against a guy with an inflated ranking by the WBA. This is all about keeping Khan winning until he gets a big money fight against Mayweather in September of 2014 or in 2015. I’m not really excited about paying to see Khan fight a guy like Collazo. To me, that’s an ESPN2 level fight, and not nearly interesting enough fight to have it on Showtime PPV. Maybe if they had it as the first fight of the night on off TV, I wouldn’t mind it. But I hate the idea of Khan-Collazo being part of the PPV broadcast by Showtime.

What’s not know is whether this will be the chief support to the Mayweather-Maidana fight or not. Khan has been talking for weeks about his fight being the co-feature bout on the Mayweather card. If that’s the case, I’m disappointed because I don’t see Khan vs. Collazo as being a big enough fight to be worthy of such a prestigious status as being the chief support on a Mayweather fight card.

It should be a big fight with tons of importance for it to be the co-feature bout on a Mayweather card. Collazo is known to hardcore boxing fans, but he’s not well known among casual fans and he’s been away from main stream fights for way too many years until his recent 1st round stoppage win over a rusty Victor Ortiz last January. That fight wasn’t even carried by Showtime, so a lot of fans didn’t even see it.

While Collazo has a pretty good chance of knocking Khan out and finishing his career, he’s still a much safer fight than if Golden Boy Promotions were to match Khan against a more relevant fighter like Keith Thurman. That’s who they should be matching Khan up against instead of the 32-year-old Collazo, because if you’re going to stick Khan in as the co-feature bout, you at least need to put him in with someone that has a good chance of knocking him out.

With Collazo having been out of it for so many years, I don’t know that he can beat Khan or not. You tell me if Collazo deserves to fight in the co-feature. Look at the guys that Collazo has fought since after his loss to Andre Berto in 2009: Victor Ortiz, Alan Sanchez, Miguel Callist, Steve Upsher Chambers, Freddy Hernandez, Franklin Gonzalez and David Gogichaishvili. I don’t see those fighters as being good enough for Collazo to be fighting on the Mayweather-Maidana card, and I definitely don’t agree with the #3 WBA ranking that Collazo has. With those kind of opponents, Collazo should be ranked near the bottom of the top 15. Khan is ranked #2 by the WBC at 147, and that’s obviously way off too. I see Khan as near the bottom of the top 15 as well. You can’t give a guy a high ranking when he’s lost 2 out of his last 4 fights like Khan has.



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