By Sean McDaniel: Unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr could be in the cards for WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) if he’s able to get by International Boxing Federation (IBF) light welterweight champion Zab Judah (41-6, 28 KO’s) on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mayweather will be watching the fight and is interested in taking on Khan in the UK, as long as Khan wins and Mayweather is able to get by his September 17th fight against WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz. There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ for both fighters, as Judah has the power and the speed to knock Khan out. And Ortiz has the youth, power, speed and the southpaw stance going for him in his fight against Mayweather. We could see both Khan and Mayweather beaten and neither of those results would be considered huge upsets at this point.
“Zab Judah is one obstacle,” Mayweather said to the telegraph.co.uk. “I’ve got to get past Victor Ortiz. Then we can go from there. I woiuld love to come and fight at Wembley. Zab has a legendary trainer in Pernell Whitaker, who knows what it’s like to be in the crunch. Experience plays a major, major part in a fight of this magnitude, Judah has been there with everybody. I don’t know who wins between Khan and Judah.”
Mayweather is right, of course. Judah has the experience over Khan, and fights with more skills. Khan doesn’t move his head and tends to overextend himself when he’s moving forward trying to throw his right hand. Judah is good at catching his opponents with short, devastating uppercuts and straight left hands when they’re in close. Judah punches with more speed and power than Marcos Maidana for short punches. That could be a big problem for Khan, because he took a lot of punishment from Maidana while in close. Against Judah, those short punches could have knockout repercussions for Khan unless his chin holds out and/or he’s learned to finally move his head when he fights.
Mayweather has been really sweating during his workouts recently and the time he’s been out of boxing doesn’t look like it’s helped him any. He may not get by Ortiz. That would really be upsetting to Khan, because he’s been talking night and day about a fight against Mayweather. It would be a pity to see Khan’s dreams go down the toilet with Ortiz beating Mayweather, and thus forcing Khan to make a tough decision whether to take on the hard hitting Ortiz or look in another direction.
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