By Scott Gilfoid: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says he’s thinking of moving Amir Khan’s April 20th fight date on Showtime to a different date, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Golden Boy is having problems trying to find an opponent face Khan (27-3, 19 KO’s), as they’ve been targeting mostly welterweights and trying to get them to drain down to fight Khan at 140.
The latest name that is being mentioned as a serious opponent for Khan is 33-year-old former IBF lightweight champion Julio Diaz (40-7-1, 29 KO’s), who’s not ranked in the top 15 at 140 or 147. Khan could be facing Diaz as the third fight on the undercard of the Danny Garcia vs. Zab Judah fight.
According to Steve Kim, the Khan-Diaz fight might take place in the UK as part of a split site triple-header. The Khan-Diaz fight could be positioned below the co-main event between Peter Quillin and Fernando Guerrero. In other words, this would be Khan’s second straight tune-up fight after beating non-top 15 ranked Carlos Molina last December in a 10th round stoppage.
Khan isn’t exactly being rushed back into facing top quality competition, is he? Khan was blasted out by Danny Garcia last July by a 4th round TKO, which was his second straight loss at the time.
You had a feeling Khan was going to get KO’d in that fight because Garcia was finding Khan more and more starting in the 2nd round, and the shots were vicious punches. It looks like Golden Boy is going to take it easy with Khan until he faces Garcia again later on this year, if Garcia gets past Judah on April 27th.
It doesn’t matter, though, because Khan is going to have to face big punchers at some point if he’s going to stay at 140. Khan will have to fight Lucas Matthysse and Ajose Olusegun if he’s to stay at 140, so even if he’s steered around some of the punchers, he’s still going to eventually have to face the music and I expect him to get knocked out like he’d been in the past.
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