Mayweather sees Berto and Khan as being the same

By Boxing News - 08/27/2015 - Comments

floyd300By Scott Gilfoid: During Wednesday’s media workout, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) came to the defense of Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs), who he’ll be facing on September 12th, by saying that he doesn’t see any difference between him and Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs).

Mayweather says both Berto and Khan have three losses on their resume, and both of them have previously captured two world title belts during their careers. Khan has been pushing for a fight against Mayweather in a big way in telling the media members that he has the talent to beat Mayweather and he deserves the fight.

Khan has been working hard for the Mayweather fight for at least the past two to three years. Unfortunately, most of the work that Khan has done has been with his mouth rather than inside the ring facing the top quality opposition to earn the fight the right way.

Mayweather, 38, has taken a lot of criticism from the media for him selecting Berto for his fight on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, instead of the likes of Khan, Keith Thurman, or Shawn Porter.

Many of the boxing fans and members of the media see the 31-year-old Berto as a poor choice for Mayweather to fight. They wanted to see Mayweather fight someone who had been doing a better job with their careers as of late. Mayweather pointed out that Berto had recently beaten Josesito Lopez, a fighter that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fought not too long ago.

“Berto is two-time world champion,” said Mayweather at yesterday’s media day at the Mayweather Gym in Las Vegas. “No different than the other guy they talked about me fighting, Amir Khan. He’s two-time world champion also, just like Amir Khan. I think Amir Khan has three losses. Berto has three losses. It doesn’t really matter who I choose. They’re always going to have something to say. And I can only judge a man off his last opponent. And the last time Berto stepped out there, he did what he had to do.”

I agree with Mayweather. Berto is as good a choice for his final fight as Khan. If you saw how good Berto looked in his last two fights against Josesito Lopez and Steve Upersher Chambers, you would probably agree with Mayweather too about him being as good a choice for him than Khan. Berto looked both speedy and powerful in those fights. He also looked very talented, as he showed a lot in the way of boxing skills.

The main difference though in Khan and Berto is that Berto is better known among the casual boxing fans in America, because he held a world title for a long time and his fights were televised on U.S TV from 2006 to 2011. He’s well-known with the fans in America, and that’s obviously not the case with Khan, who hasn’t been able to sell a lot of tickets for his fights against guys like Devon Alexander, Chris Algieri and Luis Collazo.

One way of judging whether a fighter is a good option for Mayweather is to look at whether they can sell tickets. If they can’t sell tickets in the U.S, then that is a pretty good indication that they won’t bring in a lot of PPV buys for Mayweather. Khan’s recent fights in American aren’t seeing a lot of tickets being sold. When you compare Khan to someone like Gennady Golovkin, it’s like night and day when it comes to ticket sales.

Golovkin is also a foreign fighter, and he’s had his fights televised on American television for about the last two years. But due to the exciting way he fights, he’s selling tons of tickets for his fights on both the East and West Coast in the U.S. Like Khan, Golovkin hasn’t been facing the best opposition, but he’s looking incredible in scoring knockout after knockout each time he fights.

You don’t see Golovkin running around the ring, pulling down on his opponent’s heads, shoving them, putting them in head locks, and grabbing them in constant clinches. These are the things you see from Khan, and it’s frankly not very interesting. I mean, if Khan fought like Golovkin, I think he’d have no problems selling tickets, and he’d likely be the one facing Mayweather on September 12th rather than Berto. But the fact remains, Khan isn’t selling tickets and he doesn’t have an exciting style of fighting like Golovkin. As such, Khan won’t be getting the Mayweather fight, Berto will.



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