By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it’s looking kind of bleak for Amir Khan right now as far as him getting the Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight. It’s not official yet, but we could be seeing Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) getting the big money fight against Mayweather that Khan has wanted for ages. If Berto does wind up getting the fight, it means that Khan’s attempts at self-promoting himself for the fight in the media were a dismal failure.
The Mayweather-Berto fight still hasn’t been announced, so maybe it’s still possible that Khan could get picked out for the fight by Floyd. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but there’s a mathematical chance that Khan could still get the fight.
As Dan Rafael points out, Khan’s signing with Al Haymon has failed to bear fruit. Khan signed with Haymon in April 2014, and since then has had fights against Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander and Chris Algieri. None of those fights were anything special, and Khan still isn’t any closer now to the Mayweather fight than he was before he signed with Haymon. It obviously hasn’t been a total waste of time for Khan in signing with Haymon. He is after all 3-0 since the signing, but Khan also hasn’t fought anybody really dangerous like Shawn Porter, Marcos Maidana and Keith Thurman in the last year.
In hindsight, I think Khan went about trying to get the Mayweather fight the wrong way. Instead of blabbing his head off night and day about how he deserves the fight because of this or that, Khan should have looked to earn the fight the traditional way by actually getting off his backside and beating some named fighters with talent and especially with some punching power.
If Khan had made his move three years ago by facing the top welterweights in the division instead of the fringe level guys or the leftovers, he probably would have gotten the fight. If I was matchmaking for Khan with the goal in my of getting him a fight against Mayweather, I sure as heck wouldn’t have bothered putting him in with Alexander, Collazo and Algieri. Those guys would have been last on my list. I’d have thrown Khan in deep in a sink or swim fashion against Thurman, Porter, Maidana, Breidis Prescott [again], Lamont Peterson [again], Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia [again], Adrien Broner and Ruslan Provodnikov. If Khan could have run the gauntlet and come out the winner in each fight, I think Mayweather would be welcoming Khan with open arms for a dream payday fight in September. But you get what you put into a career. When you the weak opposition, you don’t get Mayweather. When you face the tough opposition, you improve your chances of getting Mayweather. You also might see your career implode if you don’t have the talent to beat those guys.
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