Khan giving Pacquiao negotiations one more week

By Boxing News - 10/15/2015 - Comments

khan777By Chris Williams: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) says he’s giving the negotiations one more week for a fight against Manny Pacquiao.

If they’re not wrapped up by then, Khan is going to move on. Khan recently said this week that he’s pulling out of the negotiations because they’re stalling on the contract. However, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum said that there isn’t a contract yet for Khan to sign. They’re still working on things.

Arum is reportedly waiting until the November fight between his two Top Rank fighters Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios to get finished, as the winner of that fight is a potential candidate for Pacquiao’s last fight of his career in May 2016. Arum also could match Pacquiao against his fighter WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford.

A fight between Pacquiao and Khan brings the most money for Pacquiao, but matching him against Crawford or the Bradley-Rios fight would likely help Top Rank and Arum more because it would be an in house fight with no sharing of the promotions with an outside promoter.

It’s unclear why Pacquiao would ever agree to take the smaller money to fight Crawford or the Bradley vs. Rios winner when he can arguably make more money fighting Khan.

“Well, that’s what Arum says. I know that negotiations are there. Let’s wait a week to see how things turn out. If not, then let’s move on,” Khan said to ESPN Deportes.

It doesn’t sound too promising for Khan getting the fight. A week is fine for him to wait, but he really needs to start planning for his December fight right now because he could end up with another lower level opponent if he waits too long on the Pacquiao fight.

Personally, I don’t think Arum is going to give Khan the fight. I see him going with one of his Top Rank stable fighters. Khan has his name in the pot, but I see that as little more than something to keep the other fighters from asking for too much money in the negotiations with Pacquiao.

I definitely see Crawford, or the winner of the Bradley vs. Rios fight getting Pacquiao. Whoever Arum picks from those three fights will likely result in a nice 400,000 to 450,000 PPV buy fight rather than a fight that brings in 1 million PPV buys.

I don’t think there is a lot of fan interest in seeing Pacquiao fight Rios or Bradley again. He already beat them both. There’s also not much interest in seeing Pacquiao fight Crawford, who is about as well-known to the casual boxing fans as Chris Algieri was going into his November fight against Pacquiao.

“Nobody can figure out why [Khan] is saying that,” Arum said via the latimes.com about Khan saying he had pulled out of negotiations with Pacquiao. “I’ve spoken to his attorney Robert Davis, and we’re going back and forth on the numbers. The kid [Khan] talks too much. It’s probably why he lost the Mayweather fight. If there’s no contract to sign, who’s stalling who?”



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