Hatton: Khan deserves a payday against Mayweather

By Boxing News - 05/21/2015 - Comments

khan555By Scott Gilfoid: British boxing star Ricky Hatton believes that former IBF/WBA 140lb champion Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) deserves to be the one who gets picked out for a payday against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) for his next fight in September this year.

Hatton thinks that Khan has the speed to give Mayweather a tough time, and he thinks he might even pull off an upset against him. However, Hatton doesn’t think that Khan will get the fight against Mayweather due to his lack of appeal in the United States.

Hatton doubts that Americans would be interested in purchasing a fight between Mayweather and Khan on PPV. He figures that they would rather see Mayweather fight an American.

“If anyone deserves that kind of pay day it’s Amir Khan,” Hatton said via BBC.com. “If anyone’s going to beat Mayweather, it’s Amir. People look at me like I’m an idiot when I say that. But styles make fights and Amir boxing the way he is at the moment is the last thing Floyd needs at this stage of his career.”

I think Hatton is missing the point. The reason why Khan likely won’t get a fight against Mayweather in September isn’t because he’s not an American. It’s more of a case where Khan hasn’t been fighting the guys that he needed to fight for him to get the attention of the American fans. Instead of fighting the likes of Adrien Broner, Marcos Maidana and Keith Thurman recently, Khan has been fighting light punchers like Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander, Carlos Molina and Julio Diaz.

Those are B-level fighters, and not well-known enough and/or highly thought of enough to get the attention of the American boxing fans. As such, Khan got very attention from beating them. He might well have been inactive because those fights didn’t catch the imagination of the fans. I know Khan beat Maidana five years ago, but that was a long, long time ago, and the outcome was muddied due to how Khan was staggering around the ring taking punishment in the last three rounds. If Khan had faced Maidana in a rematch, I think he would have had a chance to become more popular with the American fans. A second fight between Khan and Maidana would have done a lot for Khan’s popularity.

Khan doesn’t have a really exciting fighting style that Americans like. That hurts him too. If you sit down and watch one of Khan’s typical fights in which he’s fighting off the back foot against some light puncher with no hope, and then compare it to an exciting fighter like WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Khan comes off looking really, really bad. Look at who Khan is fighting this month on May 29th. He’s facing the light hitting 140lb contender Chris Algieri. What in the heck is Khan doing fighting Algieri? The guy just lost his last fight against Manny Pacquiao in a showcase fight for Pacquiao last November.

Algieri can’t punch, and he’s not even a welterweight. As such, Khan will get nothing in terms of fan appreciation for beating Algieri because it’s a mismatch on paper. Instead of fighting light hitters from the 140lb division or ex-140 pound contenders like Carlos Molina, Devon Alexander and Julio Diaz, Khan needs to be fighting guys like Thurman, Maidana, and Kell Brook. But at this point, I think it’s too late for Khan. Mayweather is at the end of his career and he’s not going to wait around for another five years waiting for Khan to finally step it up against good opposition.



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