By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) is still waiting around hoping to become the backup plan for Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao if they’re unable to negotiate a fight for May 2nd.
Khan wants to be the backup option for either of them. As such, Khan is still holding off in looking to schedule his next fight in May despite the fact that Khan has recently given Mayweather a deadline of January 15th to name him as his next opponent.
When the deadline passed, it was assumed that Khan would move on and look to get another opponent for his next fight. But instead of doing that, Khan has continued to wait patiently, still hoping to get Mayweather or even Pacquiao for his next fight.
“We are all waiting for that (Mayweather v Pacquiao) announcement. Anything can happen,” Khan said via Skysports.com. Mayweather may not announce that he’s fighting Pacquiao. It could be myself. We have to wait for that announcement and then see where we go. For the winner or the loser, it would be a massive fight. I think I am on their radar.”
I honestly don’t see Khan being on the radar for either Pacquiao or Mayweather, but then again anything is possible. But it would seem that Khan’s connection with manager Al Haymon would preclude him from getting a fight against the Top Rank promoted Pacquiao. Maybe Haymon would allow Khan to take the fight, but I don’t see it.
I see a lot of name dropping being done by Pacquiao and Arum for negotiation sake for the Mayweather fight, but I don’t see Arum as being seriously interested in matching Pacquiao against Khan. I mean, there’s no upside for Arum to make that fight due to Khan not being a pay-per-view fighter in the United States.
Khan doesn’t have a large fan base in America, and he’s now well-known among the casual fans over there. Mayweather already gave Khan the kiss of death recently when he pointed out that Khan isn’t a big ticket seller and isn’t well-known enough for him to fight him. I don’t see that having changed with Khan sitting on his backside for the last two months since his win over Devon Alexander.
Khan probably still needs to beat some highly popular fighters before he can wind up on Mayweather’s radar. Khan mentioned Miguel Cotto and Tim Bradley as guys that he’d like to face next, but those fights likely will never happen.
Cotto works with Arum, and Bradley is promoted by him. There probably will never be a Khan-Bradley fight as long as Bradley is with Top Rank, and Khan with Haymon. As for Cotto, I don’t think he’s looking for a negative fighter to face like Khan, because his fighting style is way too defensive with all the holding, running and shoving that Khan likes to do in his fights.
The last thing that Cotto needs is to have an opponent that will be shoving and holding him each time he chases Khan down in the fight. We’re probably looking at 12 rounds of an ugly fight with a lot of cat and mouth type fighting.
Cotto would definitely have Khan on the run from the opening bell, and I could see him having to deal with a lot of shoving and holding each time he got near enough to throw a punch at him. Unless there was a good referee working the fight to warn Khan for his fouling and potentially take points away from him, I think it would be a messy fight. At 34, Cotto probably won’t want to fight a guy that shoves, holds and runs as much as Khan.
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