Khan’s 5-day deadline for Mayweather ends today

By Boxing News - 01/16/2015 - Comments

khan9By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan’s 5-deadline for Floyd Mayweather Jr to make up his mind and decide whether he’ll face him or not ends today, Friday.

Mayweather now has to speak up or forever hold his peace if he wants to fight the 28-year-old Khan next May. It’s unclear whether Mayweather will budge and suddenly take Khan up on his offer. The deadline obviously would have to be seen an irritant for Mayweather, because it comes across as Khan trying to call the shots with the American superstar.

It’s like a job applicant coming into a business and taking over an interview with a perspective employer. Khan seems to be detached from reality in setting a deadline for a fight against a star like Mayweather.

“I’ve given his team five days. I need to know this week because I need to start training,” Khan said to the Dailymail.co.uk

If Khan actually had something to offer Mayweather in terms of popularity in the U.S, I’m sure that Mayweather would agree to the fight in a second, as long as Khan had his feet on the ground when it came down to splitting up the purse for the fight. Khan though isn’t a big name in the U.S, as he kind of blew his chance of becoming a popular fighter after his back to back losses to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia.

Even then, Khan could have redeemed himself in his last four fights by taking on the top tier guys at 140 and 147, but he failed to do that. Khan has been matched ever so softly since the Garcia and Peterson fights with him facing old trial horses Luis Collazo and Julio Diaz, as well as little 5’5’ Carlos Molina and the light punching Devon Alexander.

Khan won all four of the fights, but the names were big enough to give him an upsurge in popularity. But what is really troubling is that Khan feels that his wins over Collazo and Alexander were big enough to warrant him a fight against Mayweather. That just tells you that Khan isn’t too familiar with the way American boxing fans judge these two fighters.

U.S fans don’t see Collazo and Alexander as the crème de la crème, and Khan’s management should have been wise enough to break that down to him in order to tell him that his work would just be starting in facing those guys. Matching Khan against Alexander, Collazo, Molina and Diaz is like Khan being matched against Frankie Gavin in the UK. Khan wouldn’t get a huge bump up in popularity if he beat Gavin from the British fans, and the same goes for Khan getting absolutely nothing in the U.S after beating Alexander, Collazo, Molina and Diaz. Those are empty wins and Khan wasted three years of his career accumulating those wins instead of stepping it up against the best.

The fighters that Khan needs to beat in order to erase the stain of his losses to Peterson and Garcia are Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter. As invisible as Khan is in terms of U.S boxing, I think Khan would have to beat all six of those guys in order to increase his popularity enough for it to be worthwhile for Mayweather to fight him.

It’ll take that long for Khan to build up any real hype in the U.S, because he’s still far too obscure when it comes to casual boxing fans knowing about him. The problem is Khan would likely lost to all of those aforementioned fighters, so it’s kind of pointless to speak of him facing Mayweather. I just don’t think it’s physically possible for Khan to get through a murderers row like the guys I’ve listed. His chin is too fragile, and his management would likely never risk his hide against any of those guys anyway.



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