Shaw says Khan isn’t interested in light welterweight tournament – News

By Boxing News - 06/15/2010 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: Gary Shaw, the promoter of World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, says that WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan isn’t interested in taking part in a light welterweight tournament. Apparently, Khan, 23, was interested in a light welterweight tournament after his win over Paulie Malignaggi on May 15th, but he changed his mind and doesn’t appear interested in the tournament any longer. In an article at Mydesert.com, Shaw says “[HBO] lied all the ideas. Problem is Khan doesn’t like the idea and Golden Boy [the promotional company for Khan] wouldn’t like it.”

It’s unknown if Khan wants to fight in the tournament and is being steered away from it by Golden Boy or the other way around. But even without Khan, the idea of a light welterweight tournament would still be a great idea, because it would make more of a name for fighters like Bradley, Devon Alexander and whoever else is picked to fight in the tournament. No doubt the tournament would be hurt by the absence of Khan, but it would still likely be successful even without Khan’s participation.

The Super Six tournament has done remarkably well despite IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute not taking part. However, for the light welterweight tournament to be successful, it will need more than four fighters and will need fighters from other countries to take part. It can’t just be a tournament involving U.S. fighters. Two Americans at the most should be the limit, whereas the rest of the fighters should come from elsewhere around the world.

For his part, Khan is looking to fight the winner of next month’s lightweight title clash between WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz on July 31st. Khan is hoping to get the winner to agree to fight him in November, even though Khan is no longer a lightweight is holding down the WBA light welterweight division. Presumably, Diaz or Marquez would then have to move up a weight class if they wanted to fight Khan.

It’s not exactly a good deal for either of them if you ask me because Diaz, only 5’5”, appears too small for the light welterweight division and struggled badly in his two fights with Paulie Malignaggi, who looked a lot bigger than Diaz. Marquez, 36, a featherweight until late in his career, looked bloated and slow in losing a one-sided 12 round decision when he was asked to come up to welterweight for a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September.

Marquez made it to 143, thee pounds over the light welterweight limit, but he looked awful at that weight. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Khan, who is bigger at 5’10” and very comfortable at light welterweight, would have a decided advantage against Marquez unless the fight took place at a much lower weight.



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