Why Mayweather vs. Khan Would Be an Awful Idea For Everyone

By Michael Byrne - 12/19/2013 - Comments

khan9By Michael Byrne: So if this fight – Floyd Mayweather vs. Amir Khan on May 3rd – gets announced, which Khan is insistent that it will, there is almost nothing that could be gained from it in any sense. There is such a variety of problems with this fight.

Firstly, Mayweather needs to be taking on big names at this point in his career. He doesn’t have many fights left in him and it’s time to cement his legacy. And even if he doesn’t care about his legacy and just wants to make cash, he still needs big names to attract PPV buys. Khan isn’t really a name anymore. He was knocked out by Breidis Prescott, but he recovered and rebuilt. Khan was out-hustled by Lamont Peterson, and even though there is an argument that Khan deserved the fight, horrible flaws were exposed in his game (which were already suspected/apparent) and he made a fool out of himself with the whole ‘man in the hat’ story. Khan was knocked out again by Danny Garcia, but he was outpointing Garcia (albeit only for two rounds) and Garcia has a big left hook, so Khan could still rebuild. His struggle against Julio Diaz was one step too far. Diaz isn’t world-level; he’s old, and got knocked out by Kendall Holt. Khan’s name only floats about now because he won’t shut his mouth – most people think he’s either shot or he wasn’t much good to begin with.

So people aren’t really going to be interested in the fight because they don’t care about Amir Khan and they don’t expect the fight to be competitive. However, this is where another problem lies: the fight could well be competitive. While it’s entirely possible that Mayweather will walk through Khan, countering every combination until Khan drops and then chicken dances around the ring for a while, it’s also possible that Khan will pose Mayweather some problems. Khan’s flaws are his dreadful infighting, his inability to box on the back-foot, and the fact that his chin, whilst not as weak as people make out, has a big arrow pointing to it and provides a manual on how to find it with almost any punch. His positives are blistering speed and voluminous combination punching with a wide variety of punches. At this point in his career, Mayweather doesn’t spend much time forcing the other man to stay in the pocket, he doesn’t favor the front foot, and he doesn’t have knockout power at 147. Further, the only way to hit Mayweather cleanly is with the second or third punch of a combination, and Khan rarely throws only one at a time.

So stylistically, Mayweather might not have everything his own way. There’s a big chance that Mayweather won’t look his best against Khan, and that Khan will steal some rounds. And considering how most fans are expecting Mayweather to walk through a supposedly shot/over-hyped fighter, he’s going to struggle to walk away from this fight with people, whether fans or haters, being impressed by him.

The fight doesn’t make sense on a risk-reward basis. It also just doesn’t make sense. Khan has never even fought at 147, and hasn’t had a good win since Zab Judah in 2011. It’s a terrible idea for Mayweather especially because he has so many better options. At 147, Maidana has just made some big noise. Shawn Porter has just established himself as a champion and a very good boxer. At 154, Erislandy Lara looks hot after his domination of Austin Trout. Golovkin has allegedly offered to come down. All of these guys are objectively more dangerous than Khan, and are currently bigger names. Fighting Khan would be such a let down to fans, and in turn a lot of disgruntled fans will give Mayweather less PPV buys.



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