Khan and Broner with a lot on the line this Saturday

By Boxing News - 04/28/2014 - Comments

broner660By Dan Ambrose: Both Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) and Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) have a great deal on the line for their respective fight’s this Saturday night on Showtime pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The question is who needs the victory more on Saturday night: Broner or Khan? Broner faces Carlos Molina (17-1-1, 7 KO’s), and he needs a victory to keep his career afloat to continue his illusion of being the guy that replaces his “big brother” Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the future.

A loss to Molina won’t end Broner’s career, but it will put him in a different lane to where he’ll likely never emerge from. His idea of becoming the replacement for Mayweather will be over, and he could also pretty much forget about ever being a pay-per-view fighter in his own right. That doesn’t mean that Golden Boy Promotions couldn’t still steer Broner to a world title again, but it would take some very skillful match-making for that to happen.

Khan must win his fight against Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) to keep alive his vision of getting a Mayweather fight, and a likely $10 million+ payday. Khan, of course, will lose to Mayweather if/when that fight happens, but the $10 million that Khan gets for that fight would be a nice little golden parachute to cushion his retirement years. Khan obviously won’t retire after Mayweather beats him, but it’s likely that retirement would only be a year or two away once he gets chopped down by the likes of Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter.

The writing will be on the wall for Khan when/if they beat him by knockout. But Khan is kind of in the same boat as Broner in that he can’t afford a loss for his fight on Saturday. It’s not just the Mayweather fight that Khan has on the line. If Khan can’t even beat a fighter like the 33-year-old Collazo, who clearly isn’t in the same class as Thurman and Porter, then there’s really no place for Khan to go. He says he can’t fight at 140 anymore, so he’d be forced to move in the direction of Thurman and Porter, and the likely losses he will suffer against them.

I personally believe that Khan has more to lose on Saturday. He’s got the potential big payday bout against Mayweather he’ll be losing out on if he gets beaten up or knocked out by Collazo. A loss to Collazo will mean the end of Khan’s career for all intents and purposes, but also a missed opportunity for him to get a golden parachute retirement payday against Mayweather. That’s money that Khan won’t ever see again if he gets destroyed by Collazo. Khan has got to be incredibly nervous about his fight on Saturday, because there’s so much riding on this fight. Collazo can really punch if he can catch an opponent in his wheelhouse the way he did with Victor Ortiz last January. Khan will get near Collazo sooner or later on Saturday, and it’s quite possible that he’ll knock Khan out once he lowers the boom on him.

It would be interesting to see Khan and Broner face each other if they both lose on Saturday. It would be like an endgame for both of them.



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