(Amir Khan seen here showing beautiful form on one of his many headlocks put on Luis Collazo last Saturday night) By Scott Gilfoid: WBC Silver welterweight champion Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KO’s) is saying that WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. has assured him that he’s still on his list as possible opponents for one of his fights in the future, although he’s not saying when, if ever, the 27-year-old Khan will get that shot. But by Mayweather giving Khan hope with his assurance, Khan is holding onto that and talking the fight up 24/7, even though the chances are fairly high that the fight will never take place.
“He [Mayweather] assures me I’m still on his list. Of course, I’m still pursuing the fight with him, but the next window for that is this time next year,” Khan said via the LA Times.
Khan took himself out of the running for Mayweather Jr’s next fight by saying that he can’t possibly fight Mayweather on his next scheduled fight date on September 13th due to Ramdadan. Khan suggested that Mayweather, if he really wants to fight him bad enough, can always move his fight date from his September date to November to accommodate. Obviously that’s not going to happen, so Khan is now in a situation where unless he gets picked for Mayweather’s fight in 2015 on May 2nd, Khan will have to wait until 2016, if Mayweather chooses to continue to fight beyond 2015. Khan won’t be able to fight Mayweather in September of 2015, because he’ll be running into Ramadan again. As such, Khan will only have one shot per year at a fight against Mayweather, and it doesn’t look good for Khan because Mayweather won’t move off of those two months – May and September – due to the dates being during Mexican holidays.
Khan defeated Luis Collazo (35-6, 18 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night in winning by the lopsided scores of 119-104, 117-106, and 119-104. As good as the win was for Khan, it wasn’t against one of the top fighters in the welterweight division, such as Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. Collazo was just some guy that Golden Boy Promotions picked out for the Khan fight after Collazo got his only notable win earlier this year in beating one of their fighters [Victor Ortiz] by an early stoppage. Before that victory, Collazo hadn’t gotten a meaningful win since 2005, and he’d never beaten a fighter with a name before. Collazo was known mostly as just some guy that had lost to Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley and Andre Berto than for him being the WBA welterweight champion for a very, very brief amount of time.
The names that is being floated for Khan’s next fight is former IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander. He’s someone that Khan was supposed to have fought last December, but Khan chose to turn the fight down and sit around and wait for a fight a Mayweather fight that never happened. Alexander doesn’t have any power to speak of, and he was just soundly beaten by Shawn Porter last December. Alexander would be a fairly safe fight for Khan, but obviously not the name that Khan needs to convince the knowledgeable fans that he’s a deserving opponent for Mayweather. The only way Khan can show fans that he deserves a fight against Mayweather is to fight Keith Thurman and Porter, and beat one or both of them in a tournament type situation. However, it’s not likely that Golden Boy will ask Khan to fight either of them because the chances are very, very high that Khan would get knocked out.
Collazo staggered Khan in the 8th round with one of the few punches that he landed with any power in the fight. Other than that, Collazo was throwing very few punches and just following Khan around the ring with his hands down by his waist. Thurman and Porter would be all over Khan, raking him with power shots to the head. Even if Khan chose to hold those fighters 24/7, he’d be still in a world of hurt.
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