By Scott Gilfoid: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank feels confident that Amir Khan will be a viable opponent for Pacquiao if the fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr fails to happen next on 5/2.
After saying that they’d agreed to terms with all Mayweather’s proposals for their mega-fight, they kicked it over to Mayweather to have him sign the contract but he’s been silent since then. With Pacquiao’s deadline for Mayweather of January 31st fast approaching, it’s quite possible we could see Arum fall back to his plan-B option of looking match Pacquiao against the 28-year-old Khan.
Arum says that it’s a doable fight because Khan’s adviser Al Haymon has just an advisory role with Khan and that he couldn’t block the fight if it gets made. The one thing that could potentially stop the Khan-Pacquiao fight is Khan’s contract with Showtime.
Khan says it’s up after three fights, but there’s talk that Khan still owes Showtime one more fight because one of Khan’s fights against Luis Collazo was on a pay-per-view broadcast and supposedly that doesn’t count. If Khan does still owe Showtime one more fight, then he can forget about the Pacquiao fight. I mean, that might be a good thing because it’s a really bad match-up for Khan style-wise.
Yeah, Khan would get a big payday in fighting Pacquiao, but if he gets knocked around the ring like Chris Algieri was recently, it would be another big blow to Khan’s career. Khan still hasn’t avenged his knockout losses to Breidis Prescott and Danny Garcia. Another knockout loss would be pretty brutal for Khan and his dreams of one day fighting Mayweather.
“Prince Harry has a group looking to put on a Manny Pacquiao fight in London,” Arum said told ESPN. “Khan would certainly make sense, and it’s an interesting fight. But remember — all that is a backup plan. We are still trying to nail down the Mayweather fight. We need Mayweather to say yes. Hopefully, it won’t happen, and we won’t need this plan because Manny will be fighting Mayweather,” Arum said. “But you have to plan ahead.”
I think it’s more likely than not that the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight won’t be happening next and that Arum is going to need to look to match Pacquiao against a plan-B opponent. If Khan is still under contact with Showtime, you can bet they’ll quickly stop the Khan-Pacquiao fight from taking place, because Khan would be fighting on HBO while still under contract with Showtime. A Khan vs. Pacquiao fight wouldn’t be big enough to televise it as a joint broadcast between HBO and Showtime.
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