By Jeff Aranow: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) has big plans for the next 12 months of his boxing career. He wants to try and lure Floyd Mayweather Jr. out of retirement if he beats the highly popular WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) on May 7 in their fight on HBO PPV.
After Khan takes care of business against the 25-year-old Canelo, he wants to move back down to 147 and beat WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia for his title. Khan would then have shaken up the sports world by beating both Canelo and Danny Garcia.
Khan says he would then call out Mayweather, who might choose to come out of retirement in order to show the boxing world that he can be the one to defeat Khan and bring him back down to reality.
“The next 12 months could be massive for me,” Khan said to Fighthype. “I win this fight [against Canelo], I get back down to 147, and I’ll fight for the 147 WBC title [against Danny Garcia]. I’m in a great position. Beat Caneo, become middleweight champion, then go back down to 147 to fight Garcia to become the welterweight world champion. Maybe call Mayweather out, even though I didn’t get a chance against him. I do respect him,” said Khan.
It sounds a bit like a pipe dream on Khan’s part, because he would need to accomplish two very big tasks in defeating Canelo and Danny Garcia in back to back fights. While it is definitely possible for Khan to beat Canelo, it’s going to be hard for Khan to take the weight off to get back down to 147 to fight Garcia for his WBC welterweight title. Khan is currently bulking up to put on enough weight to be competitive with the 175lb Canelo on May 7.
The weight that Khan puts on will be mostly muscle weight. That’s the hardest kind of weight to take off without weakening a fighter. History has shown us that fighters that bulk up to temporarily fight in a higher weight class have a difficult time cutting that weight to go back to their old weight class. It can be done if a fighter takes the weight off slowly and in the correct way. But if they cut muscle weight quickly like Roy Jones Jr. did after winning a world title at heavyweight against John Ruiz, then it can mess up their system and make them too weak to fight at a high level in their old weight class.
Beating Garcia will prove to be very difficult for Khan, and I don’t think he should try it right away.
Mayweather might not come back even for a fight against Khan. He didn’t want to fight Khan before when he was someone who had been beaten in back to back fights by Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. I can’t see Mayweather wanting to fight Khan after he defeats both Canelo and Garcia. if anything, Mayweather might be scared off completely and stay retired permanently.
Khan would be better off staying at middleweight if he beats Canelo, and instead look to cash in on a fight against Gennady Golovkin, Even if Khan vacates the WBC title, he can fight Canelo in a rematch at middleweight. There’s more money in the Golovkin and Canelo fights than there is in fighting Danny Garcia. I think Khan’s adviser Al Haymon needs to break down the money figures for Khan so that he can make an informed decision about his career after the Canelo fight.
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