(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: Despite the endless comments that Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) has made about wanting to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. next in September, Khan says he’s not concentrating on a fight against Mayweather right now. Instead, he says he’s only focused on the task at hand against Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) in their fight this Friday on May 29th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Khan, 28, sees the Algieri fight as the stage for him to show that he deserves a fight against Mayweather, even though boxing fans largely don’t rate Algieri as a good enough opponent for Khan to use as a springboard for a fight against someone as popular as Mayweather.
That’s still not stopping Khan from believing that beating Algieri is the magical key to open the door to the riches he would get in a fight against Mayweather.
“Everywhere I go, people ask me, “what about Mayweather? What about Pacquiao?” I’m not looking at them guys,” Khan said via the Dailymail.co.uk. “The guy I’m fighting, the guy I’ve been working on, the techniques I’ve been working on is to beat Chris Algieri, not Mayweather, not Pacquiao.”
That’s interesting that Khan is taking the line that he’s not focusing on Mayweather because Khan has been yapping about wanting to fight Mayweather for weeks now. I mean, it’s gotten to the point where Khan has worked himself into a stance where he believes that Mayweather and his team are just looking for an excuse not to have to face him.
To be honest, I don’t think Mayweather has to search too far to find a suitable excuse for not fighting Khan. All he has to do is look at the guys that Khan has faced since his losses to Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson. Khan has fought this group of fighters: Carlos Molina [the light welterweight, not the junior middleweight], Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo, and Devon Alexander. After Friday, you can add Algieri’s name to that list. These are decent fringe level fighters, but they’re not top five type guys, and they all share a common trait of not being big punchers.
I think those would be good opponents for Khan to fight in order to go after a lower level type fight, but definitely not to get a fight against Mayweather. Beating Algieri should not be the fight that someone takes in order to get a fight against Mayweather. First off, Algieri is coming off of a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision defeat to Pacquiao in his last fight in November. Secondly, Algieri is a light welterweight, not a welterweight. Finally, Algieri can’t punch and is considered not much of a threat to beating Khan. He’s basically just a safe opponent for Khan to pad his resume with, and ensure that he doesn’t lose yet another fight.
“I’ve got Chris Algieri, there’s no point me looking at Mayweather, looking past this fight, because that fight might never happen,” Khan said.
I agree with what Khan says here about there being no point in him looking past the Algieri fight for a bigger one against Mayweather. The problem is that Khan hasn’t done that. He’s been flapping his gums about Mayweather constantly during the build up to the Algieri fight, and he’s only now clamming up about him.
It sounds nice that Khan is getting serious about Algieri, but the fact he’s been talking about Mayweather for weeks now and it’s just come across as totally bizarre given the opponent that Khan is fighting. Khan isn’t going to be able to talk himself into the Mayweather fight, and he’s not going to be able to get the fight by taking on guys with no power and who are coming off of one-sided defeats. I think Khan is going to be a very unhappy person in the next few months when Mayweather names his next opponent and his name isn’t Khan.
In what appears to be a shot at his former trainer Freddie Roach, Khan said “I was with a trainer before who maybe wasn’t teaching me the defensive side of boxing. I needed to work on a few things and improve as a fighter and being under Virgil [Hunter], he’s done that for me.”
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