Khan says he’ll use Mayweather’s game plan to beat Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 08/13/2015 - Comments

khan44By Scott Gilfoid: A fight between former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan is possible for early 2016. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has already said he’s interested in making that fight now that Khan is “shooting his mouth off” about the Pacquiao clash.

If he gets the fight, Khan says he’ll follow the same blueprint that Floyd Mayweather Jr. created in how to beat Pacquiao by using movement, single shots and not being stationary. Khan says he plans on being slick like Mayweather was against Pacquiao to get the victory.

It remains to be seen whether Arum was serious about wanting to match Pacquiao against Khan or if it was just something Arum said in order to name drop to keep Pacquiao’s popularity up after his disappointing loss. One way of making boxing fans forget about Pacquiao’s loss to Mayweather is to name drop different guys’ names. I’m not sure that I would pick Khan’s name if I was name dropping. If Arum really wanted to impress boxing fans, he’d start mentioning Gennady Golovkin as someone he’d like to match Pacquiao against. Fans would really be appreciative of a match like that.

“To win a fight against someone like Pacquiao, the key is speed, movement and distance and that’s how Mayweather beat him,” Khan said via Dubai 103.8.”Floyd beat him by being sneaky and he made it look so easy. If you stick to the same game plan that Mayweather used, then it’s an all-day win for me.”

It’s not surprising that Khan is flapping his gums about wanting to be slick in a fight against Pacquiao, because that’s how Khan always fights. He moves a lot, shoves, pulls down on his opponent’s heads, and puts them in head locks. This is all standard stuff for Khan. He doesn’t stay in the pocket much, even against light hitters like Devon Alexander, Carlos Molina, Luis Collazo or Chris Algieri.

Khan used constant movement against each of these guys, and it was pretty boring to watch. Khan doesn’t stay in the pocket like what we see from Mayweather because he doesn’t have good reflexes to get out of the way of shots. Khan’s defense is centered on his movement, shoving, head locks and pulling down on his opponent’s heads.

“Yes, I think the fight can happen,” said Khan.”If it makes sense financially for both of us, then I think the fight will definitely happen. I think it makes sense for both of us to take it.”

I hate to say it, but I don’t think Arum is at all serious about wanting to match Pacquiao against Khan. You have to remember that Khan is with Al Haymon, and he doesn’t work with Arum. On rare occasions, they’ll work with each other to put a fight together with their people, but it’s really rare. In this case, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

By Arum talking up a Pacquiao-Khan fight, he can potentially create a wedge between Khan and Haymon’s relationship if Arum chooses not to make the fight with Khan due to him being with Haymon. If Arum blames the fight not getting made on Haymon, it might cause Khan to question whether he’s making the right decision in beating with the high powered American adviser. But personally, I don’t think Arum is serious at all about wanting to match Pacquiao with an outside fighter with another promoter.

If anything, I see Arum keeping Pacquiao in house for his next fight by matching him against Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford. The only exception to that would be if Floyd Mayweather Jr. showed interest in wanting to fight Pacquiao again. Of course, Arum would make that fight because there would be so much money in a second fight between them. It’s a win-win fight for Arum, and it wouldn’t matter that Mayweather isn’t one of the guys in his Top Rank stable.

Arum isn’t going to want to have Pacquiao fight another slick fighter in his next bout, especially a slick fighter like Khan, who doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of PPV buys. Khan doesn’t have a huge fan base in the United States like other fighters do. One of the reasons I think that Khan lacks a large fan base in the United States because his fights aren’t particularly interesting to watch. He runs around too much, and doesn’t stand and slug like Golovkin, who the American fans have adopted.

If Khan had an exciting fighting style, then a Paquiao vs. Khan fight would be huge in America, and it would be worthwhile for Arum to make the fight. But unfortunately, Khan does not fight like Golovkin. Khan fights like someone who doesn’t like to get hit, and it’s obviously kept him from building a large fan base in America.

Khan also hasn’t helped himself by choosing not to fight the guys that would increase his popularity like Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Marcos Maidana, Shawn Porter, Errol Spence Jr., Kell Brook and Keith Thurman. I realize that Khan fought Garcia and Maidana in the past, but that was a long time ago and not recently. Khan needs to fight Garcia and Maidana a lot if he wants to build a fan base in the U.S.



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