Roach thinks Khan will beat Mayweather

By Boxing News - 04/05/2014 - Comments

khan1By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach thinks that his former fighter Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) has the skills to defeat Floyd Mayweather Jr (45-0, 26 KO’s) if and when that fight takes place. In fact, Roach feels that Khan has been ready to beat Mayweather ever since he was trained by him back in 2012.

Khan dumped Roach after his back to back losses Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia, so Roach didn’t get a good chance to trumpet how Khan could take Mayweather. The wins that Khan got while being trained by Roach were largely over lesser fighters and/or guys that were over the hill like Zab Judah.

“I thought Khan could have beaten Mayweather,” Roach said to The Telegraph. “I think Khan has the right speed to give Mayweather problems. He could give Mayweather trouble. Mayweather is pretty quick but he’s getting older and Khan is still young and he has a lot more speed. I thought Amir could beat him while trained him, I can’t change my mind because he has a new trainer.”

It’s too bad that Roach couldn’t keep Khan from getting blasted out by Danny Garcia and beaten up by Lamont Peterson, because then Roach have put a lot of pressure on Mayweather in the media to fight Khan. There obviously wouldn’t have been the Top Rank/Golden Boy Promotions problem to have kept that fight from taking place.

With Khan now being trained by Virgil Hunter in Oakland, California, Roach won’t get the chance to be the one that guides Khan into an inevitable fight against Mayweather in 2014 and 2015. Roach will be forced to sit on the sidelines and watch the action from the outside looking in. That obviously has got to hurt in a huge way for Roach, because if Khan were to get lucky and beat Mayweather, Roach won’t be able to share in the glory and take partial credit the way he normally would have.

Roach may not share in the Khan-Mayweather mega fight, but that’s not stopping Roach from holding out hope that Khan will soon agree to fight Roach’s No.1 fighter Manny Pacquiao. Roach thinks that fight can happen despite the fact that Khan fights for Golden Boy Promotions and Pacquiao for Top Rank.

“Khan’s responsible for his own actions,” Roach said. “Never say never…I’m not so sure it would be in England, even though Manny loves the place. He would want a truck load of money to fight there. It would most likely be in the US.”

As you can see, Roach isn’t giving up. If he can’t take part in a Khan-Mayweather fight, then he wants to be a part of a Khan-Pacquiao fight. Roach already missed out on Mayweather-Pacquiao fight when Pacquiao and Mayweather couldn’t agree to the blood testing Mayweather wanted for the fight back in 2010.

Mayweather made a last ditch effort to try and make a fight against Pacquiao recently by saying he’ll fight him if and when he’s no longer with Bob Arum of Top Rank. Pacquiao said he has no problem working with Arum, which likely means that he won’t be leaving Arum to try and set up the Mayweather fight at the end of 2014.



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