(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: #2 WBA Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) has a lot riding on his fight next month against Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) on May 3rd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Collazo believes in his mind that a win over Khan will put him in position to get a big money world title shot against WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. But Colllazo also realizes that if he gets beaten by Khan, the loss will knock him back to square one with his career, and he’d have to start all over at age 33.
“This fight against Khan is my whole career right in front of me. I believe if I beat Amir Khan I have a bigger future in boxing, and if I don’t, I have to start from the bottom again. A win over Khan does put me in the Mayweather sweepstake.”
I get the picture that Collazo isn’t really in the Mayweather sweepstake if he wins. The only one I see having a chance at getting a Mayweather fight here is Khan. Collazo is just some guy who used to be the WBA 147lb paper champion 7 years ago for a brief time before he was beaten by Ricky Hatton. After that fight, Collazo’s career went into free fall with him facing 3rd tier opposition for the next 7 years until they dragged him out to fight a deflated Victor Ortiz last January. Collazo did what pretty much any other fighter would have done to what was left of Ortiz by knocking him out immediately in the 2nd round.
The win made Collazo look better than he actually is, but that was good for Golden Boy because they were then able to use him as a safe alternative for Khan to fight instead of having him fight someone that actually has very excellent chance of beating Khan like Keith Thurman, Devon Alexander or Keith Thurman.
Those are the guys that Khan should be fighting, not Collazo. The fact that Golden Boy dragged out Collazo for this fight and propped him up by having him beat Ortiz, it gives you a pretty good idea that Collazo is being being put in the position where he’ll be the sacrificial lamb for Khan to slaughter in order to justify having Khan get the Mayweather fight. It’s really telling that Golden Boy didn’t choose to match Khan against there other fighters that are younger and fighting at a higher level than Collazo. Heck, even Lucas Matthysse from the 140lb division would be a much, much better choice to fight Khan than Collazo.
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