By Scott Gilfoid: While some fighters earn their shots at huge money fights by beating top caliber opposition, others do it on the cheap by beating 2nd tier fighters and guys that fight in a division below them. Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) believes that if he beats the light hitting 140 pound contender Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) on May 29th, it will open the door for him to get a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September.
Khan points out that Algieri was recently beaten by Manny Pacquiao last November, and he feels that if Algieri was good enough to face Pacquiao, then he’s good enough to be his opponent.
What Khan doesn’t seem to understand is that the Pacquiao-Algieri fight was a mismatch on paper, and yet another one of the weak opponents that have been put in with Pacquiao in the past six years. As such, Algieri was little more than a stay busy fight for Pacquiao. In other words, a Brandon Rios type opponent.
“Like I said, this is time to fight Chris Algieri. I’m not going to be fighting Floyd Mayweather yet till I win this fight,” Khan said. “I know there are big fights out there like Mayweather. I just have to stay focused and win this fight.”
It’s unclear what Mayweather is going to face next September in what could be the last fight of his career. Who knows? He might choose Khan as his last opponent for his career at that time. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but there is a possibility. But if Mayweather does fight Khan, he’ll probably need to move off his September date because Saul “Canelo” Alvarez could wind up facing Miguel Cotto on that date on HBO PPV, and there’s little chance that Mayweather vs. Khan would be a big enough fight to move Canelo-Cotto off that date.
Now if Mayweather were to face Gennady Golovkin in September, then I see Canelo having little choice but to move off the date because he won’t be able to compete with a fight of that magnitude. Mayweather-Khan isn’t a big deal in the U.S, and the PPV sales for that fight won’t likely be any better than Mayweather’s fights against Robert Guerrero and Marcos Maidana.
If Khan can get a fight against Mayweather off of a win over Algieri, he’d be doing it on the cheap because Khan hasn’t taken a risky fight since being stopped by Danny Garcia in 2012. Khan has won his last four fights against Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander. In other words, Khan has had four light tune-ups in a row and now he’s about to face his fifth tune-up against Algieri. Based on those fights, I think deserves a fight against someone like former IBF champ Shawn Porter or Jo Jo Dan, but definitely not Mayweather.
Khan is really making a lot of assumptions about his fight against Algieri. He thinks that a win over Algieri will get him a Mayweather fight, but he clearly doesn’t know. I think it probably won’t. It’s too much of a cherry pick type fight than a real test for Khan.
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