Khan wants Thurman, Peterson or Garcia for next fight

By Boxing News - 08/11/2015 - Comments

khan677777777(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan appears to have finally come to terms with the fact that he won’t be fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September. Khan instead says he’s interested in fighting Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia or Lamont Peterson. Like always, Khan says he’ll leave it in hands of his adviser Al Haymon to pick out his next opponent.

Khan doesn’t say who Haymon is looking to find for him, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the above mentioned fighters are last on the list of fighters that he’s looking to match Khan against.

“I’ve said I want to fight the big names. It could be Thurman, the Garcia rematch, Peterson rematch,” Khan said to The MMA Hour. A lot of fighters say they’ll fight anyone, but when it comes down to it, they never want to sign the contract. I think I’m probably one of the only fighters out there who’ll fight anyone in front of me. I’ll just leave it to Al Haymon.”

The old “leave it to Al Haymon” for Khan. In Khan’s last three fights, he’s faced Chris Algieri, Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander. What those three guys have in common is a lack of punching power. So if this trend continues for Khan, then I think you can rule out Danny Garcia and Thurman for Khan’s next fight.

Peterson has a chance for a rematch against Khan because he’s not a big puncher. I mean, Peterson has decent power, but he’s the type of guy who wears his opponents down with his inside game and his body punching. Peterson seems to throw better to the body than he does to the head. When Peterson beat Khan in 2011, he gave him a bad beating on the inside. Khan was forced to shove Peterson all night long, which resulted in Khan getting docked two points for his constant shoving.

“Al Haymon said to me, Mayweather’s his own boss, he makes his decisions, he doesn’t seem to want it,” Khan said. “I think Mayweather knows Amir Khan would give him a good run for his money. He just doesn’t seem interested. I bring a lot of the money. It must be he’s afraid.”

You could also say that Mayweather might just be flat out annoyed at Khan and his constant badgering him about a fight. Khan has been on Mayweather’s tail more than any other fighter, and that’s got to be off putting to say the least for Mayweather.

Now if Khan had just kept his trap shut about wanting to fight Mayweather then maybe he would have gotten his cash out fight against him. Khan should have just told Mayweather that he’s interested in fight. That would have been enough for Mayweather to know that he wants the fight. But Khan has been talking 24/7 about the Mayweather fight and always saying stuff like ‘he must be afraid’ and ‘he knows I would give him a good run for his money.’

The good thing is now Khan can move on and start fighting good opposition. He doesn’t have to keep fighting the weaker guys so that he doesn’t get beaten again. If Khan continues to fight the light punchers, then it’s his career he’s throwing away. I mean, Khan isn’t going to go far fighting just guys like Algieri, Alexander, Carlos Molina, Collazo and Julio Diaz.

If he gets stuck on fighting guys of that caliber for the remainder of his career then he’ll never become a champion again. As it is, I don’t know that Khan will ever win a world title at 147. There’s no easy marks for him to win an easy title like there was when he picked up the WBA title from Andriy Kotelnik and the IBF title off of a past his best Zab Judah. If Khan wants a world title now at 147, he can go after WBO champ Tim Bradley, IBF belt holder Kell Brook, WBA “regular” champion Keith Thurman, or he can wait for Mayweather to vacate his WBA and WBC titles. If Khan waits for Mayweather to give up his titles, then he might get stuck fighting Danny Garcia or Shawn Porter. Those guys can both punch.



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