By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan recently set his own little deadline for Floyd Mayweather Jr to agree to fight him or else he’ll be looking in another direction. The deadline came and went without Mayweather agreeing to fight the 28-year-old British fighter.
Instead of Khan moving on to try and get a fight against someone who is eager to fight him like Keith Thurman or Kell Brook, Khan still finds himself waiting for Mayweather, and now Manny Pacquiao to see if he can get one of the two guys to face him next.
What’s troubling is that Khan is still waiting for Mayweather to agree to fight him. I think Mayweather already made it perfectly clear to Khan that he has zero interest in fighting him because Mayweather only wants big names that are recognizable to casual boxing fans in the U.S.
Khan might be popular in the UK, UAE, Pakistan and India, but he’s not popular or well-known in the United States, the place where the pay-per-view buys will be coming from for a Mayweather-Khan fight. Casual boxing fans, the fans that would drive a Mayweather fight, still largely have no clue who Khan is in the U.S.
“The [Brook] fight can happen and it will be a massive fight in the UK. At the moment we are looking at other names – the likes of Floyd Mayweather,” Khan said via Skysports.com. “My name is getting mentioned with the likes of Mayweather and Pacquiao, whereas Brook is calling me out, but I want to fight the biggest names in boxing which are those two. So let’s see where we go. The fight can happen one day but not yet.”
Khan may or may not wind up getting a fight against Pacquiao, but that remains to be seen. Mayweather might wind up facing Pacquiao next on May 2nd. If that happens, Khan will have sat around waiting for one of the two fighters to face him for nothing. In other words, he’ll have done nothing but wasted time.
I can understand Khan waiting on Pacquiao, because it’s possible he could get that fight next. But for Khan to be still talking about leaving himself available for a fight against Mayweather, then that’s just sad. Khan is just not getting a clue that Mayweather isn’t interested in fighting him because he doesn’t seem to be catching on that the interest just isn’t there on Mayweather’s part.
Mayweather, if he doesn’t get a fight against Pacquiao, he’ll be looking to get a big name to fight like Miguel Cotto rather than Khan. Mayweather-Cotto would pull in at least 1.5 to 1.8 million pay-per-view buys. Mayweather-Khan is a fight that would be lucky to bring in 800,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States, because all the fan attention would be coming from Mayweather.
It’s not personal with Mayweather. He just needs a guy that can help out with the PPV buys, and Khan obviously would be a drag on the PPV sales because of his little known status in the U.S.
Like I’ve said before, Khan had a chance of increasing his popularity in the United States if he’s fought some live bodies in the last three years, but instead he’s gone the safe route by taking on weak punchers and obscure fighters in Devon Alexander, Luis Collazo, Carlos Molina and Julio Diaz.
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