By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) is still dreaming of fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr., despite having the toughest opponent of his career Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) facing him and prepared to knock him out on December 11th. In the latest boxing news, Khan, speaking with the Manchester Evening News, says “I want to bring the big fights back this country [England]. The Floyd Mayweather fight would be one of those…The Mayweather fight could definitely happen in England.” I’ll believe that when I see it.

Mayweather, if he ever does fight Khan, probably won’t want to go and fight in his country and risk losing a hometown decision. But you have to wonder what kind of time line Khan’s promoters Golden Boy Promotions has for him to be facing Mayweather. Would it come after the Maidana fight? You have to figure that with the risk that fighters like Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander would pose to Khan, that Golden Boy will try and push for the Mayweather-Khan fight immediately rather than wait for Khan to take on the winner of the Alexander-Bradley bout. Those two fighters would have an excellent chance at beating Khan, and in beating him, it would ruin all the dreams of Khan fighting Mayweather.

I can see Mayweather being open to fighting Khan, because he would have less to fear from him compared to Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather might jump at the chance of making big money the easy way by knocking off Khan before Bradley or Alexander does it first. However, it’s going to take a minor miracle for Khan to escape the Maidana fight without getting knocked out, because Maidana hits very hard and he’s going to be head hunting in a big way to try and knock Khan out. He knows that Khan is vulnerable to hard shots, and he’s going to be hitting him as hard as he can with every punch.

Khans says “After the [Breidis] Prescott fight, I changed everything. I got with the best trainer [Freddie Roach] in the world and you can see how my style and body shape have changed over the past two years. And I can still get better.” Khan has done well since being knocked out by Prescott, but he’s done well against fighters with zero power that have been matched against him by his promoters. Khan hasn’t been put in with any big punchers, so it gives the impression that he’s improved. However, it may just be the case he looks improved because he’s fighting guys with zero power.