Khan to be at Mayweather-Maidana 2 fight on Saturday

By Boxing News - 09/12/2014 - Comments

khan111By Scott Gilfoid: In what has to be seen as a clear attempt to create interest in a fight between himself and WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) for early next year, Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KOs) will be at ringside this Saturday night to watch Mayweather’s rematch with slugger Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Khan wants to face Mayweather next May, and by showing up and being in the audience on Saturday, Khan is obviously hoping that Showtime will put the camera on him quite often so that the massive amounts of boxing fans that will be watching the fight will get excited about the prospect of him fighting Mayweather next May rather than someone else.

It’s still hard to get excited about a Mayweather vs. Khan fight considering that Khan has been dining on soft opponents ever since he was knocked out by Danny Garcia. Khan has had three straight soft jobs since that loss and he’s expected to fight 2nd tier fighter Josesito Lopez on December 6th.

Lopez fought last night and looked dreadful against a guy even shorter than 5’6 ½” Manny Pacquiao by the name of Rafael Cobos. Lopez looked really bad last night.

“It’s a fight [Khan vs. Mayweather] that many want to see happen just because our styles would make a very interesting clash. If I keep winning then I think it’s a fight that could definitely happen in the future. Floyd has said the same thing to me in the past,” said Khan.

If Khan keeps winning fights and eventually works his way back up to fighting top tier opposition, then, yes, a fight between him and Mayweather would be an excellent fight. But with the guys that Khan has been matched up against – Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz and Luis Collazo – recently, I don’t see how Khan can make a case where he deserves to share the same ring with Mayweather.

It just looks like Khan’s adviser Al Haymon and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are trying to take the backdoor route for Khan to get the Mayweather fight instead of putting him in with the best fighters. I mean, if Khan doesn’t have the talent to hang with the best fighters in the welterweight division, then boxing fans need to find that out sooner rather than later. Having Khan fight 2nd and 3rd tier fighters in order to get a fight against Mayweather just seems wrong.

Khan said “For now, I’m out again in December so I’m looking to get my opponent named for that and putting on a great performance in my next fight. But if it makes sense for both sides then it will be a fight that could happen. I don’t want to put a timescale on it but I got into this sport to fight the best and at the moment Floyd is ahead of everyone so it would be great to test myself against him.”

Khan has recently been talking about him fighting Robert Guerrero and Devon Alexander. However, the name that is being mentioned for him is Josesito Lopez, and that’s troubling because Lopez isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies, although I expect the sanctioning bodies to push him up in the rankings if he gets a fight against him.

“I really believe speed is one of the key components in beating Floyd,” Khan said. “Speed of hand and speed of foot – even speed of mind. It’s not the only thing but it’s very important, as is having a good jab and being able to answer the questions he poses. You can’t be one dimensional against Floyd because over and over in his career he has shown that he makes changes to whatever style his opponent comes with. Yet, when you look at it up until Maidana the people who have troubled him the most have been people with speed and good movement, those are things I possess.”

Khan beat Maidana in a fight in which he appeared to be bailed out by the referee Joe Cortez after Khan was hurt in the 10th. Cortez always had a reputation for not allowing in fighting. So when Maidana was trying to finish Khan off in the 10th after staggering him, Cortez kept pulling Maidana off of Khan while he was battering him against the ropes.

It was the strangest things I’ve seen in a fight before. The only stranger was when a referee half carried Nathan Cleverly back to his corner after he’d been knocked down in the 3rd round by Sergey Kovalev. Instead of halting the fight, the referee helped Cleverly back to his stool. In the very next round, Kovalev stopped Cleverly.

Khan said “I would love to bring a fight of that scale back home but I think it would be very difficult. Floyd tends to have all his fights at the MGM Grand. I know he has spoken about coming over here and fighting so you never know. He has a big fan base here and I have a big fan base so it would make sense. To fight Floyd at Wembley would be an unbelievable experience but at the end of the day Floyd is in the position where he decides who and where he wants to fight.”

I think Khan can pretty much forget about Mayweather agreeing to fight him in the UK, because that is definitely not going to be happening in this lifetime. I mean, why would Mayweather agree to fight the B-side in his home country? Where’s the upside for Mayweather making a move like that? It would be bad enough that Mayweather would be fighting Khan off of his wins over Carlos Molina, Luis Collazo and Julio Diaz without a credible name, but then to have Mayweather fighting in the UK. Why would Mayweather do that? What for?



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