By Darren Munsey: You hear most boxers say that the main goal in their boxing career is to leave a legacy for their fans to remember. They want to be remembered as a fighter who will fight anyone, anywhere, anytime at any cost. We as boxing fans know that words like that are mostly hollow from several fighters in today’s era.
I for one have previously felt that Amir Khan (25-17 ko’s has taken a lot of unfair stick from several boxing fans out there for being ‘’spoon fed’’ in his career, he has been accused of ducking big punchers and ultimately not as good as all the hype around him. He has also been accused of taking more of an interest in how much money he can earn rather than wanting to put on a good show for his fans like he constantly says he wants to do. So that made me ask myself ‘’Is Amir Khan chasing a legacy or the easy bucks’’?
This is my take on it. Prior to the Paul McCloskey (23-22-1) fight it was my opinion that Khan defiantly cared about both putting on a show for his fans and leaving a legacy for him to be remembered and that all the stick and negative comments about him were unwarranted but since the McCloskey fight I have changed my mind and this is why.
There is no doubt that since the Prescott fight Khan has been matched against light punchers with the exception of Maidana but lets not forget that Maidana was his mandatory challenger. Khan had no option but to fight Maidana or be stripped of the WBA title. If Khan was a fighting champion knowing that Maidana was the mandatory challenger he could have fought Maidana in the UK rather than the pushover that was Salita. Fighting Maidana in the UK would certainly have given his UK fans something to remember but he chose the easy option. Then he went on to make his US debut against Paulie Malignaggi. With Malignaggi’s lack of power this was always going to be routine for Khan but I do not take anything away from Khan for taking that fight due to the fact Malignaggi is still a big name in the US and a former world champion. So that leads me to McCloskey. No matter how much spin you put on it there were better fighters out there who Khan could have fought instead i.e. Lamont Peterson (who drew with Victor Ortiz who is the new WBC welterweight champion) which broke down over what Khan said were Peterson’s money demands and what about someone like Holt? He is a former world champion and lost on points to Timothy Bradley so he would have been a great opportunity for us the British boxing fans and Khan himself to benchmark himself against Bradley. In my opinion Khan took the easy option as he has previously in his career to the detriment of the UK fight fans even though McCloskey is Irish. At this stage is his career his legacy could have been far more advanced if he had taken on all comers in the way Carl Froch has done but Khan is still young and has plenty of time to enhance his legacy.
So that leads me to money, in the build up to the McCloskey fight the following things happened:-
1. Peterson (28-1-1) rejected the fight due to what he called was ‘’taking the short end of the stick’’
2. Khan sacked trainer Alex Ariza and then Ariza claims he was unpaid by Khan. Surely if Ariza is good enough to prepare Pacquiao he is good enough to prepare Khan?
3. McCloskey originally rejected the fight due to what his promoter said his fighter was offered ‘’peanuts’’
4. Khan rejected the chance to appear on Sky sports 3 after Sky advised the McCloskey fight would not be on PPV.
Now in my mind points 2 and 4 prove that Khan is sacrificing his legacy and fans at the expense of quick bucks. Regarding Ariza, I do not know if money was the real reason for the split for sure but what I do know is Khan looked sluggish and lacked power in his last fight compared to how he began the Maidana fight. I am sure Ariza would return if Khan offered him a decent financial package so why does Khan not do that? Losing Ariza can only damage his performances and therefore his legacy.
Finally, why does Khan think he has a divine right to be a PPV boxer? Fellow British world champions Burns and Froch are not! Why would he not allow his UK fans to watch him for free on Sky sports 3 especially after saying “It could be a long, long time before I come back and fight in the UK again”? Khan would have still earned as much as some of us would earn in a lifetime by fighting on Sky sports 3. His decision to move to Showtime PPV proved he certainly puts money before his fans. Now I know some of you will be saying ‘’why can’t he earn big money out of boxing’’? The answer to that is of course he can and good luck to him but if that is the case then he should just be honest with his fans rather than claiming how much he cares about them.
Thank you for reading.
Comments are closed.