Khan: I’m in talks with Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 09/13/2015 - Comments

khan333By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) says he’s in talks with Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) for a fight against him next year. Khan says he won’t be fighting Ruslan Provodnikov next.

Hopefully for Khan’s sake he gets the Pacquiao fight because he’s invested several years in attempting to get a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. with no luck. It would be a shame for Khan to throw away another three years trying to get a fight against Pacquiao.

Khan hasn’t faced a real fighter since his loss to Danny Garcia in 2012. It’s unclear whether Khan has purposefully put his career in the slow lane because he was hoping to get the Mayweather fight, or if he simply was tired of losing and felt that he needed to face the soft opponents for him to win each time.

Whatever the case, Khan has thrown away three years of his career fighting non-champions, and he has nothing to show for those years. He hasn’t had a big money fight, he hasn’t won a world title during that time, and he hasn’t increased his standings in boxing.

“Nah, complete nonsense, mate,” Khan said to ESPN.com. “We going for [Manny] Pacquiao. In talks. We deal with Top Rank. Al is cool with it if it makes sense for his fighter.”

Khan’s adviser Al Haymon supposedly won’t be getting in the way of a fight between Khan and the Top Rank promoted Pacquiao. Heck, Haymon might not even need to get in the way of the fight for it to still not take place.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is keen on matching him against Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford, and he’s running out of time to make that fight happen. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least that Arum goes ahead and makes that fight next rather than letting Pacquiao fight Khan. It’s a move that helps Arum and Top Rank by increasing the value of Crawford for his promotional company. Having Pacquiao fight Top Rank doesn’t help the promotional company in the long run the way that a Pacquiao-Crawford fight would. That’s why I don’t see Khan getting the fight against Pacquiao in 2016.

We’ll likely see Pacquiao fight Crawford next, and then either Brandon Rios or Tim Bradley for his final fight of his career if Mayweather doesn’t come out of retirement to fight Pacquiao a second time. The money from a second Mayweather fight would make it worthwhile for Arum to let Pacquiao take that fight. The money that Pacquiao would get for fighting Khan wouldn’t be that much more than a Pacquiao-Crawford fight.

I hope Khan has a good plan-B for who he can fight next year when/if the Pacquiao fight fails to materialize. Khan needs to think seriously about fighting a world title sooner or later, because the welterweight division is getting better with talented fighters like Errol Spence and Erickson Lubin coming up. There are younger fighters coming on and they’ll jump ahead of Khan, and leave him in the dust.

That’s why it’s probably the smartest thing for Khan to throw away any more time with his career. He’s the last three years of his career doing nothing but fighting the likes of little 5’5” Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander and Chris Algieri. Heck, Khan almost lost to Algieri, and that’s pretty sad. Once Lubin and Spence are at the top, there won’t be any place for Khan to go in the welterweight division. He’ll need to move down to 140, and pray that the division isn’t overwhelmed with younger talent.

The way Khan has directed his career kind of reminds me a lot of how Zab Judah did his own career. Judah moved up to welterweight division from 140 and briefly held a title. He ended up wasting years of his career as the opponent for guys like Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Had Judah stayed 140, he would have been a champion for years. But by the time Judah moved back down to light welterweight, he was up there in age after wasting years at welterweight, and he hasn’t been able to get back to the top.



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