Marquez: Khan vs. Mayweather is a good fight

By Boxing News - 09/14/2014 - Comments

_DSC6430(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Juan Manuel Marquez says he’d like to see WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) fight Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KOs) next because he believes it would be a good fight for fans. Mayweather hasn’t said whether he’d be interested in the Khan fight, but he was complimentary of his skills at the post-fight press conference last Saturday night when he was asked by a media member what he thought about the idea of fighting Khan.

“Maybe he’ll [Mayweather] fight with Khan. It’s a good fight,” Marquez said to esnewsreporting.com.

Besides Khan, Marquez would also like to see Mayweather fight Manny Pacquiao. He doesn’t know whether that fight will happen or why it’s not happened in the past. Marquez would just like to see those to fighters face each other before they retire.

As for Khan-Mayweather, you’d have to consider Khan as one of the leading options for Mayweather’s next fight in May of next year. Mayweather doesn’t have any other good options for him to fight right now at 147. You can’t consider IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook as a good option because he’s not well known with the casual boxing fans in the U.S.

Keith Thurman, while likely a far better fighter than Khan, still isn’t well known in the U.S. Mayweather’s probably not going to fight Manny Pacquiao or Tim Bradley due to the huge obstacles that would present themselves with Mayweather trying to work out a deal with Top Rank and the network problems.

I personally don’t think Khan rates a fight against Mayweather right now due to Khan having been backed off completely from facing 1st tier opposition since his loss to Danny Garcia in 2012, but boxing is more of a business than an actual sport.

Khan is better known than Keith Thurman and Kell Brook in the United States, and that makes him the better choice for Mayweather than those guys. I see Thurman as a better fighter than Khan, but I don’t think that has anything to do with who Mayweather will be facing in May. He’s going to fight whoever can bring the most PPV buys. If Canelo or Cotto aren’t guys that will fight Mayweather, then Khan very likely will.

The thing that Mayweather has to be concerned with in a fight against Khan is all the holding and shoving that Khan likes to do. He holds like mad nowadays and when he’s not holding, he’s either running or pulling down on his opponent’s heads. He also is quite keen on putting his opponents in head locks. Mayweather would need a good referee like Joseph Cooper to work the fight if he’s going to be able to fight without having Khan all over him after every punch.



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