By William Mackay: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik is giving Amir Khan a great chance of beating Floyd Mayweather Jr. if the two fighters meet up at some point in timer. Pavlik, speaking with esnewsreporting.com, points to Khan’s fast hand speed as the reason why he feels that Khan could possibly take Mayweather.

Pavlik acknowledges that Khan looked bad in his recent loss to Lamont Peterson last month, but he still thinks Khan’s hand speed might give him the edge over Mayweather.

Pavlik told Ellie Seckbach of esnewsreporting.com “If there’s anyone out there that can beat Mayweather, even though he [Khan] didn’t look that great in his last fight, because of his height and speed, it’s Amir Khan. His hand speed is phenomenal.”

I agree with Khan having fast hands, but that’s all I agree with. I think Pavlik needs sit down with a really, really strong cup of Colombian coffee and watch Khan’s fights against Marcos Maidana and Lamont Peterson before he makes a prediction of how Khan would do against Mayweather.

Khan was throwing wild, useless shots in both fights, and hitting nothing much of the time. Khan may have fast hands but he lacks power and accuracy that he would need to beat a fighter like Mayweather. Khan could have a slight edge in speed over Mayweather, but his lack of accuracy and power would be his undoing.

Mayweather, who’s got pretty fast hands of his own, would pick Khan apart in between his fast shots and score a fairly quick knockout. If Khan tried any of his fouling tricks, such as grabbing Mayweather’s head to pull him down or put him in headlocks, Mayweather would foul him back and likely hurt him.

It would literally force the referee to make a decision of whether to penalize Khan for his head bending, head locks and constant shoving, or to take points away from Mayweather for fouling him in return. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Khan would be the one losing points. I just hope he wouldn’t create a big conspiracy fluff after he loses by trying to appeal to the WBC to have his loss overturned.

But no way does Khan beat Mayweather. I’m really surprised with Pavlik. I thought he had better boxing knowledge than that. If Khan can’t even beat Peterson, then how does he beat someone a lot better like Mayweather? Even if Khan is at his shoving and headlocking best in terms of being allowed to foul, I still don’t see him beating Mayweather. I think Khan would have to put his fouling in a higher gear to have a chance against Floyd. Instead of 50 shoves per fight, he might need to crank that up to over 100 and do the same with the headlocks and pulling down on the head.