By Scott Gilfoid: If Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach gets his way, Pacquiao won’t be fighting Amir Khan if the fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr fails to materialize.
Roach says he doesn’t like the idea of Pacquiao using Khan as the plan-B backup option if they can’t get the Mayweather fight, because he sees Khan as too much of a runner and he doesn’t think that will make for an exciting fight.
Instead, Roach says there are a couple of options out there that he prefers Pacquiao to fight, starting with WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia. Roach likes Garcia as a fighter and feels that his power and engaging fighting style would make for an entertaining fight if they could get the bout made. Roach didn’t say who the other guy he’d like to see Pacquiao fight, but it seems pretty obvious that it would be a slugger that comes to lay it on the line rather than to run and hold all night long.
That’s got to be a real buzz-kill for Khan that Roach sees him as a runner and not someone desirable for a fight against Pacquiao.
“We’re not going to sit around and wait on this guy [Mayweather],” Roach said via RingTV [http://ringtv.craveonline.com/news/374523-video-freddie-roach-on-mayweather-pacquiao-cotto-canelo]. “We have to stay busy. I think there are a couple of better opponents out there [than Amir Khan]. I like Danny Garcia. I think that’s a better fight [than Khan]. I think he [Khan] runs around a little too much. It would be a little bit boring.”
This has got to be seen as bad news for the 28-year-old Khan, because it was only yesterday that he was talking about Pacquiao being an option for him due to Mayweather showing no interest in fighting him due to his lack of popularity in the United States.
“Mayweather will fight me or Pacquiao [this year],” Pacquiao said to the Telegraph.co.uk. “If the fight between me and Pacquiao takes place, we could do something for the better.”
If Roach isn’t interested in having Pacquiao fight Khan, then we could see the British fighter high and dry in 2015, stuck fighting the Devon Alexanders and Luis Collazos of the welterweight division instead of the superstars that will give him a career high payday. Of course, Khan can always break his pattern of fighting fringe level welterweights and take on some solid guys like Kell Brook, Marcos Maidana or Keith Thurman, but that would be a huge risk for Khan.
Those guys can all punch and the chances of Khan running into something big would be high. If he gets hit with a big enough shot, he’ll be staggering around the ring like he was in his fight against Maidana in 2010. That was the fight where Khan was hurt for the last three rounds of the fight and on the verge of being knocked out by Maidana.
It’s going to be fun to see who Khan wind up fighting in 2015 if he can’t get Pacquiao or Mayweather to fight him. Will it be a good fighter or more weak punchers from the past without the power to knock him out?
Khan could make things easier on himself if he would just step up a class and start facing guys like Maidana, Brook, and Thurman, but I just don’t see him doing that.
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