Arum: If Khan keeps shooting off his mouth about Pacquiao, I’ll arrange the fight

By Boxing News - 08/11/2015 - Comments

khan333By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says that he might put together a fight between his fighter former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao and Britain’s Amir Khan if he keeps hearing Khan blabbing about wanting to fight Pacquiao like he’s been doing as of late.

Ever since Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced his mismatch with Andre Berto on September 12th, Khan has switched his focus in flapping his gums 24/7 about a fight against Mayweather to now talking endlessly about wanting to fight Pacquiao in 2016 in Dubai.

There isn’t going to be a fight in Dubai between the two fighters in 2016, because the Dubai Sports Council doesn’t have a free date next year for the fight. But it’s definitely possible for a Pacquiao-Khan fight to be staged in the United States or even Macau, China, if Arum wants to put the fight together.

“This kid Amir Khan keeps shooting his mouth off about Manny Pacquiao. I can arrange for Khan to fight Pacquiao,” Arum said via the Telegraph.co.uk. “Amir Khan has been begging Mayweather for a fight and now he can get a major fight. I’m not a hard guy to deal with. I’m not going to mess them around.”

Of course, you must know by Arum saying that Khan could get the fight with Pacquiao if he keeps shooting off his mouth that it will directly lead to Khan talking even more about the fight. Arum is basically cuing it up for Khan to start blabbing his head off about the fight.

With Arum giving Khan a glimmer of hope for a fight against Pacquiao in 2016, it has to make you wonder what effect this will have on Khan’s match-making for his next fight in November or December of this year. Khan was recently saying that he’d like to fight Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia or Keith Thurman in his next fight this year. But with Arum now saying he might go ahead and match Pacquiao against Khan if he keeps opening his yap about the fight, I think it’s now painfully obvious that we’ll likely see Khan matched against another non-puncher that has no chance of knocking him out.

I mean, you can pretty much scratch Garcia, Peterson and Thurman’s names off the list of potential opponents for Khan’s next fight. Now that there’s a chance that Khan could get a fight against Pacquiao, my guess is we’ll see Khan matched up against another Chris Algieri type of fighter for his next fight. Shoot, I wouldn’t be surprised if we now see a rematch between Khan and Algieri, even though a rematch would be pointless. I guess they could push the fight on the basis that their previous encounter had a close enough outcome for there to warrant a rematch.

That’s funny how Arum says Khan had been begging Mayweather for a fight. To be honest, that’s how it came across to a lot of boxing fans. Khan was whining about a fight against Mayweather so hard and for so long that it probably was the reason why Mayweather decided to wash his hands of fighting Khan. I mean, Mayweather probably would have fought Khan years ago if he didn’t act so needy.

Khan’s constant badgering of Mayweather about the fight just came off to some boing fans like his career revolved around that fight. Khan basically put his career on hold for the last two years in fighting weak opposition while waiting for Mayweather to give him the call for the fight. Besides looking really bad, it just a waste of time for Khan.

Right now, Pacquiao is still in the process of rehabbing his surgically repaired right shoulder that he tore up in his May 2nd fight against Mayweather. It’s anyone’s guess what condition Pacquiao’s shoulder was before the Mayweather fight, but he certainly didn’t do the shoulder any good in fighting with the condition.

At this point it’s hard to tell whether Pacquiao will be able to ever fully regain the strength that he had in his right arm. When you see baseball pitchers coming back from rotator cuff injuries, a lot of them don’t make it back. The ones that do often don’t have the speed on their fastball that they had before the injury.

If all Pacquiao has is marginal strength in his right arm, he’s going to be handicapped when he comes back and tries to fight. Luckily for Pacquiao, he’s got excellent punching power in his left hand, and blazing hand speed in both hands. Even if Pacquiao’s punching power is only 40% of what it once was in his right arm, it might be more than enough for him to beat Khan and knock him out cold.



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