Khan: The only fight I’m interested in is Mayweather

By Boxing News - 06/23/2015 - Comments

Amir Khan vs Devon AlexanderBy Scott Gilfoid: Despite Floyd Mayweather Jr. making it clear to the media that the main two candidates for his next fight in September being Karim Mayfield and Andre Berto, that news still doesn’t seem to have sunk into the head of Amir Khan, who is still waiting patiently to get the call from Mayweather for the fight.

Khan says he’d be interested in fighting Manny Pacquiao, but he’s not heard anything from Top Rank about them wanting to fight him. Besides that, Pacquiao has months of rehab in front of him once his surgically repaired shoulder heals up, and he’s not going to be able to fight until at least the first quarter of 2016.

Khan wants to fight in September, and he’s going to need to make a decision soon about whom his next opponent will be if he wants to get someone good for that date.

I think Khan needs to come to terms with the creeping reality that Mayweather has absolutely no interest in fighting him. Once Khan realizes that Mayweather is interested in fighting other guys, preferably ones that the American boxing public has heard of, then he can move on and look to fight somebody else like Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Marcos Maiana, Lucas Matthysse, Shawn Porter or Kell Brook.

Goodness knows, it’s about time that Khan starts facing punchers again after he was knocked out by Danny Garcia three years ago in 2012. Khan has been acting like someone who had a bad experience and doesn’t want to go through that again. Just because he was knocked out by Garcia three years ago doesn’t mean he should steer clear of punchers for the remainder of his career. Not fighting punchers for three years has kept Khan fighting the lesser fighters over and over again, and this has stunted his career in a major way.

“If Manny mans up and wants to take the fight then it will happen, but the only fight I am interested in right now is Floyd Mayweather,” Khan said to Thenational.ae. “Everywhere I go fans ask me only one question: When are you fighting Floyd?”

I wonder if those fans who are asking Khan about Mayweather are intentionally pulling his leg to mess with his mind. It’s like a joke already. I don’t know how any fan could honestly be asking Khan when he’s going to fight Mayweather without doing it in a teasing manner, because Mayweather has been ignoring Khan for years now. When you have someone showing no interest in a fight for that long, then it’s academic that they don’t want to fight.

Khan just don’t seem to get it, and that’s so, so sad. Instead of waiting on Mayweather, Khan should be scheduling his next fight and never mention Mayweather’s name again. If Khan takes no questions on the subject of Mayweather, and never mentions his name again, he might be able to make some progress with his stalled career. I mean, Khan’s career has essentially been stalled since his knockout in 2012. He’s fought nothing but stay busy fights since that time, or fights against fringe level guys like Chris Algieri, Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander. Those aren’t highly ranked welterweights. Those are all fringe guys that Khan has been feasting on. I don’t know what he’s been fighting that class of fighters, but I have a good suspicion it’s because they aren’t big punchers.

“Floyd is clearly avoiding me. That’s the fight I want, I’ve proved myself in the welterweight division, so I don’t know what more to do,” Khan said. “He fought Pacquiao now when he is over the hill. If he had fought him five years ago, Manny would’ve beaten him.”

Wow, it looks like Khan is lashing out at Mayweather for passing him up again. Why can’t Khan just take the pain of being ignored and move on with his life? There’s no point in Khan taking a shot at Mayweather for fighting Pacquiao at 36 instead of five years ago when Pacquiao was in his early 30s. What difference does it make when Mayweather fought Pacquiao?

The fact is Mayweather doesn’t appear to want to fight Khan, so that’s the end of that. Khan needs to get over it, move on, and finally face a good welterweight for a change. At least if Khan fights the likes Garcia, Thurman, Maidana, Breidis Prescott, Kell Brook, Matthysse or Shawn Porter, he’d find out if he’s cut out for the welterweight division. If not, then he can move down to light welterweight and stop hounding Mayweather for a fight.



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