(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) definitely didn’t impress tonight in the eyes of many boxing fans in beating a guy that was tailor-made for him in Chris Algieri (20-2, 8 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision, but that didn’t stop Khan from still calling out Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a payday fight in September.
What was really troubling tonight was how Algieri was able to time Khan and hurt him on a number of occasions with right hands. I counted three separate times that Algieri had Khan hurt. Algieri lost the fight, but he won the event in my eyes. It really pains me to say this but Khan looked absolutely dreadful tonight. I don’t know how he worked up the nerve to call out Mayweather after the fight. The way Khan looked when he was calling him out was like someone who knew he didn’t fight well enough to call him out. The usual bragging confidence that Khan normally has was beaten out of him by Algieri. Instead of a confident looking Khan, we saw a guy that looked defeated, mouthing words like a parrot.
Khan used the argument that he’s Mayweather’s WBC No.1 contender to his 147lb belt. I’m not sure if that argument is going to work though, because Mayweather made it perfectly clear after his win over Manny Pacquiao that the titles no longer mean much to him.
“Look, I think everybody knows Amir Khan wants to fight Floyd Mayweather. I mean, that’s what we want next,” Khan said after his fight tonight against Algieri. “I’m the number one WBC. Mayweather is the champion, so let’s make it happen.”
Khan wasn’t as full of energy in barking a call out to Mayweather. I think Khan realized that he did not fight a good fight, and definitely didn’t earn a shot against him, not with the way he was nailed constantly by scorching right hands from Algieri.
Khan actually made Algieri look like a really good fighter instead of the guy that was beaten by Manny Pacquiao by a lopsided 12 round decision last November. Khan came into the fight saying he was going to show the difference between him and Pacquiao by doing a better job in beating Algieri than he did. Well, we saw tonight that Khan had a lot of problems with Algieri. You can take to mean that Pacquiao is seriously the much better fighter than Khan. As such, I can’t give Khan a fight against Mayweather. I don’t think he earned and I wouldn’t want to see Khan potentially making for an ugly to watch fight against Mayweather with all that awful to look at clinching and head-locks that Khan likes to put on his opponents. I mean, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was surely a boring one, but I think it’ll be much worse if Mayweather fights Khan next rather than an entertaining fighter that brings it.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I don’t want to see Mayweather use up his last fight against Khan. Mayweather can do what he wants, but if he wants a boring fight filled with running, clinching and head-locks from Khan, then he should go ahead and fight him next. But if he wants an exciting fight where people will actually be interested in seeing the outcome, I think Mayweather should face either Keith Thurman or Gennady Golovkin. No one else is untainted enough for Mayweather to fight. Danny Garcia just got exposed, Kell Brook is still fighting obscure domestic level opposition, Pacquiao already got whipped, and the other welterweight contenders are too flawed for Mayweather to waste time fighting.
The Khan-Algieri fight took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight was televised on Spike TV on Premier Boxing Champions. Khan won by the final judges’ scores of 115-113, 117-111 and 117-111.
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