By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KO’s) believes he stole the show last Saturday night with his win over former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (35-6, 18 KO’s) in their co-feature bout on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. – Marcos Maidana fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khan beat Collazo by a 12 round unanimous decision, and he thinks that Mayweather is now a little bit scared after watching what he did to the 33-year-old Collazo.
“I was in against a tough guy [Collazo] who supposedly gives everyone a tough time in the ring, and we it with ease,” Khan said.
Collazo used to give some fighters problems many years ago when he fought Ricky Hatton in 2006 and Andre Berto in 2009, but that was a long, long time ago. Those fights took place 5-8 years ago, and those were exactly recent fights, were they? The only fighter with a name that Collazo have given problems to since 2009 was a ring rusty and already exposed Victor Ortiz, who Collazo stopped earlier this year in a 2nd round knockout.
Other than that one fight against Ortiz, Collazo’s opposition since the Berto fight has been limited to just these fighters: David Gogichaishvili, Franklin Gonzalez, Freddy Hernandez, Steve Upsher Chambers, Miguel Callist and Alan Sanchez. If you’re a hardcore boxing fans, you’ll know that those fighters are not top tier contenders. They’re merely a mix of 2nd and 3rd tier fighters. So when Khan says that Collazo gives “everyone a tough time,” he’s either talking about everyone in the 2nd or 3rd tier or he’s taking about fights that took place 5 to 8 years ago. How can you make a big deal about what Collazo did 8 years ago when he’s been facing pretty much soft opponents since then? It doesn’t make sense.
“There was a lot of pressure on me, but I think we stole the show in Vegas on the same card as Floyd Mayweather, and I think that puts a little bit of fear into Floyd Mayweather. That’s who I definitely want next. I put my team in touch…talks with Mayweather’s team. I think it would be an amazing fight to get it in Wembley [Stadium] in the UK. I would definitely love to have it this year in maybe November-December time.”
Was Khan’s performance against Collazo impressive enough to put fear into Mayweather? I didn’t see anything – other than the running, clinching, shoving and pulling down on Collazo’s head over and over – that would cause Mayweather to fear fighting Khan. I mean, Khan did a great job with the head-locks and and holding, but I didn’t see enough clean fighting for him to put any kind of fear into a fighter in Mayweather’s class. Khan might be right in one respect though.
I do think Mayweather does have some trepidation about fighting a guy like Khan, but that’s likely because Mayweather is not keen on fighting someone who will be holding him and running from him all night long. Mayweather obviously doesn’t want to be held, and he doesn’t want to have his head bent forward all night long like the way Khan did with Collaz, and he definitely doesn’t wsant to be put in head-locks. As such, I think there is some fear there from Mayweather in a fight against Khan, but not for the same reason that Khan thinks.
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