By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) is counting on getting the fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr if the American pay-per-view superstar’s fight against Manny Pacquiao crumbles in the next few days. Khan wants the Mayweather fight, and he feels he’s earned the shot against the 37-year-old star after beating Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander in his last two fights.
Khan believes those victories have proven himself worthy of a fight against Mayweather. Many boxing fans disagree with Khan, however, as they feel that he should have proven himself by facing Keith Thurman and Kell Brook in his last two fights instead of the light hitting Alexander and Collazo, a fighter from the past.
“If that fight falls through I think I have to be the next fighter to face Mayweather because I’ve proven myself in many ways,” Khan told Sky Sports News HQ via Skysports.com. “Mayweather wanted me to prove myself at 147lbs which I did by beating Luis Collazo and then by moving up and beating Devon Alexander.”
Khan is probably going to need to fight one of the big punchers in the welterweight division for him to get a fight against Mayweather. That means he’s going to need to fight Brook, Thurman or Marcos Maidana.
The problem with Khan’s wins over Collazo and Alexander is the fact that neither of those guys have large fan bases, and neither of them were highly thought of by fans at the time that Khan fought them. I mean, Alexander is a former two division world champion, but he’d been recently beaten badly by Shawn Porter.
Alexander took a real beating in losing to Porter in their fight in December of 2013. Porter really beat Alexander badly in that fight. Alexander’s boxing stock plummeted after that fight, and that’s why Khan’s win over Alexander afterwards was pretty much meaningless. Porter got there first and he did a far better job in beating Alexander than Khan did.
Khan fought defensively in beating Alexander in a boring fight; whereas Porter bullied and pounded Alexander for 12 rounds in beating him up in a real thrashing. If you compare the two fights, what Porter did to Alexander was far superior to what Khan did. With Khan’s win over Collazo, we’re talking about Khan beating a guy whose only notable win during his entire career was a victory over Victor Ortiz in January 2014.
If you look at all of Collazo’s other victories, they pretty much came against obscure opposition. He beat Jose Antonio Rivera to pick up the WBA welterweight title back in 2005, but then Collazo lost to Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley, Andre Berto and Freddy Hernandez.
“Mayweather kept saying I had to prove myself and I’ve done that so what next? Is he just going to keep putting these obstacles in front of me or is he going to take the fight?” Khan said.
I don’t think Khan is going to get a fight against Mayweather if the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight fails to take place. I think Khan still needs to prove himself in the eyes of Mayweather by him facing Thurman, Brook or Marcos Maidana. Those are the guys that Khan needs to likely beat if he wants a fight against Mayweather, and he needs to beat them in an exciting fashion, not by holding them or fighting off the back foot for 12 rounds like he did recently against Alexander.
Khan’s win over Maidana in 2010 was a controversial one because of the referee working the fight Joe Cortez getting in Maidana’s way so many times after he hurt Khan in the 10th round. Cortez kept separating Maidana from Khan when he was trying to finish him off in the last three rounds, and that has many boxing fans thinking that Khan was saved from a knockout loss by Cortez doing that.
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