By Scott Gilfoid: Virgil Hunter, the trainer for Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s), says he thinks that we’ll definitely be seeing Khan fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s). Hunter believes that Khan will be a much improved fighter by the time he faces Floyd Jr. next year because he’ll have another 2-3 training camps under his belt by the time they meet up in 2015.
“I believe Floyd Mayweather will fight Amir Khan next year, and I believe it’s a blessing in disguise because Amir will have another couple of fight and 2-3 more training camps,” Hunter said to Ringside. “Having that advantage will make it more dangerous for Floyd.”
Hunter is talking about Khan fighting another 2-3 times before he gets the Mayweather fight next year. If that’s the case then he better do a good job of inserting his own voice in the selection process for Khan’s opponents, because if Khan is matched against someone too good at 147, he’ll lose. Another loss for Khan and you can say goodbye permanently to a Khan-Mayweather fight. Floyd Jr. only has a small handful of fights left before he retires, and he’s not going to want to waste time waiting years for Khan to redeem himself after yet another loss.
Golden Boy Promotions likes the idea of putting Khan in with Luis Collazo on Mayweather’s undercard on May 3rd. I don’t like that fight much, but I can definitely see Khan losing to Collazo in that one. Collazo is a better puncher now at 32 than he was earlier in his career, and I rate him as being stronger than Khan’s recently opponents Julio Diaz, Carlos Molina and Lamont Peterson. I think Collazo can punch as good as Danny Garcia, and possibly even better than him.
If a guy like Diaz had Khan staggering around the ring, then I think Collazo will put Khan down for the 10 count.
I think Golden Boy might end up changing their mind about putting Khan in with Collazo, and instead look for another little fighter like Carlos Molina to match him up against so that he doesn’t get knocked out again. Collazo is much too dangerous for Khan at this point with his fragile chin and with him coming off of a long layoff. If Adrien Broner is being given a free pass by being matched against Carlos Molina on May 3rd, then I can see Khan getting a weak opponent as well.
Hunter needs to realize that even if Khan had 4 years of training camps with him, he’d still be out of Mayweather’s class. The only thing that Khan can do is to try and wait Mayweather out until he gets old and hope that he’s old enough that he can no longer fight at a top level. Having additional training camps for Khan isn’t going to improve him enough to beat Mayweather. If Khan can’t even beat a fighter like Julio Diaz without controversy, then he’ll never have the chance of beating Mayweather.
Even if Golden Boy matches Khan against stiffs for the next year in order to keep him winning long enough for a cash out fight against Mayweather, Khan is still going to need to look good against the weak opposition. I even have doubts whether he can do that.
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