Mayweather doesn’t want Khan fight, says Jeffries

By Boxing News - 05/26/2014 - Comments

khan66By Chris Williams: While Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his team work on finding a high quality opponent for his next fight on September 13th, former pro Tony Jeffries, who now operates a couple of gyms, believes that Mayweather doesn’t want any part of WBC Silver welterweight champion Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KO’s).

Jeffries, who is from the UK, thinks that Khan has improved his game with his last fight against Luis Collazo, and he sees Khan as being polished enough now to where he would never have lost to the guys that beat him before in Breidis Prescott, Lamont Peterson, and Danny Garcia. But more importantly, Jeffries feels that Khan would give Mayweather a problems with his hand speed.

“I thought he [Khan] was the best he’s ever looked [in beating Luis Collazo],” Jeffries said. “This time [against Collazo], he was very disciplined, and boxed the way he should have done in all those other fights that he should have won. I would absolutely love to see him fight Mayweather next. I think what Amir says about Mayweather is correct. Mayweather has never fought anyone as fast as Amir. His hand speed is phenomenal. I really don’t think Mayweather wants that fight right now.”

Jeffries needs to wait a while before he passes judgment on what Khan can or can’t do, because one fight against a name from the past in Luis Collazo doesn’t tell you anything about whether Khan can be a challenge to a fighter like Mayweather. It clearly an accident that Khan was matched up against Collazo rather than someone more relevant like Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. If they’re not matching Khan against those guys then what does that tell you?

Mayweather doesn’t duck fighters. If he’s not fighting Khan, it’s because he’s not who the boxing public in the United States want to see him fight. Mayweather listened to the people in making his decision for his last fight, and the people wanted him to fight Marcos Maidana in the majority of the polls that were conducted. Khan did win one poll at the Mayweather Promotions website, but that was after Khan sent out a tweet to his over 1 million followers to help him get the fight.

If Khan establishes himself as a fighter with a name and a large following in the United States, I’m pretty sure Mayweather will fight him, but right now Khan is still too obscure for Mayweather to be wasting time fighting him. What Mayweather doesn’t need is to fight someone who can bring in flies. He doesn’t need to fight someone where the PPV buys will be in the 400,000 range.

If Khan were make a name for himself by fighting Keith Thurman, Porter, Lucas Mattysse, Peterson [again], Erislandy Lara and or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, I’m sure that he’ll get a fight against Mayweather. But right now, Khan is kind of lacking in the popularity area and his wins over Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz and Collazo aren’t big enough victories to get Mayweather.



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