By Dave Lahr: Trainer Freddie Roach has been seventh heaven the last few years in training Manny Pacquiao. Not only has Roach been able to train one of the best fighters in boxing, but he’s also been probably the best paid trainer by far in the sport. However, with Pacquiao about at the end of his career and staring at possibly his one last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Roach won’t have a similar star like Pacquiao to take up the slack once Pacquiao is gone.

Roach has had some good years with Pacquiao and he’s likely set for life with the good money that he’s received while training Manny. Roach trains a number of fighters, such as Amir Khan, but none of them are in the same class as Pacquiao and none bring him the big bucks that Pacquiao does. Roach thinks that Khan can be another huge mega star like Pacquiao, but I’m not so sure about that. Khan hasn’t shown to be anywhere near as good, as tough and durable as Pacquiao has.

I can see how they’re bringing Khan along slowly by matching him against weak punchers and older fighters that aren’t much of a threat to knock him out. However, I don’t think the boxing public will buy into Khan and see him as a Pacquiao-like replacement mega star unless Khan is matched against the very best in the junior welterweight division.

So far, that’s not happening. Khan is being put in with the faded stars of yesterday rather than the top light welterweights like Marcos Maidana, Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley. More than that, they’re positioning Khan against older lightweights like Joel Casamayor and possibly Juan Manuel Marquez instead of fighters from Khan’s weight class. It’s possible that the casual boxing fans, which for the most part only have a passing knowledge about the sport, will see Khan’s fights and see him as a mega star worthy fighter that they would be interested in seeing on pay-per-view in droves.

But I’m not sure if enough of them will do it to make Khan as huge a star as Pacquiao is producing good PPV numbers. As such, I think once Pacquiao goes, Roach is going to be without a big cash cow for the time being unless Khan can somehow be put in with better fighters and avoid being knocked out again.