By Dan Ambrose: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) may not have looked too good in beating Chris Algieri last Friday night in winning a tougher than expected 12 round unanimous decision, but he did his job and kept his career on the right tracks to move forward to whatever the future will bring him.
Khan, 28, is hoping that the fight he gets next is against superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. next September on the Mexican Independence Day holiday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather almost has to face Khan if he wants to fend off the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight from taking his date in September.
Canelo has said he’s going to take the next Mexican holiday date in September, and it sounds like he’s serious. That means that Mayweather needs the biggest name he can get for him to try and push Canelo and Cotto off that date. Of the available welterweights, Khan has the biggest name.
Khan may not be the most talented of the bunch, but he’s definitely a bigger name than guys like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Marcos Maidana and Kell Brook. The only name that would perhaps eclipse that of Khan is Adrien Broner, but he would have to get past Porter in their fight on June 20th, and he’d have to be willing to face Mayweather. Mayweather vs. Broner would be a good fight, but it’s not too likely that either of those fighters would want to take the fight due to them being good friends.
With Khan likely to get the Mayweather fight by default, the question is does Khan have the talent to win the fight? Khan has the speed to potentially give Mayweather a lot of problems, and he can move and punch with enough power to win rounds. Khan also is a fairly busy fighter, and there’s a good chance he could outwork Mayweather in the same way he did with Algieri. It’s a fight that would prove difficult for Mayweather unless he changed up his game and came after Khan the same way Algieri did. Mayweather wouldn’t have the height to tower over Khan the way Algieri did, and he won’t have the weight to give Khan problems like Algieri. At best, Mayweather would come into the Khan fight weighing a little over 150. If you compare that to how much the 160 pound Algieri weighed against Khan, it puts Mayweather on even terms with Khan.
“Look. I think everybody knows Amir Khan wants to fight Floyd Mayweather,” Khan said after his fight against Algieri. “Let’s make it happen.”
Mayweather has run out of names for him to fight, and he has to take the Khan fight now unless he wants to take the Broner fight or do something really brave like facing Gennady Golovkin. Since neither of those things are likely to happen, it puts Mayweather in a situation where he kind of has to take Khan unless he wants to get pushed off his September date. There is a small chance that Cotto will take a long time negotiating with Canelo, causing their fight to be pushed into October or November. In that case, Mayweather can take on anyone he wants for his next fight because there would be nobody to compete with him for the September date. Mayweather would still be better off facing Khan rather than someone else for that date if he wants to attract a lot of fans to the fight. Khan would sell the fight by giving a lot of interviews and making a lot of bold predictions. It would be a very marketable fight.
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