By Scott Gilfoid: WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (24-0, 21 KOs) says he’s not impressed with #1 WBC Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs), and he sees Khan as someone who is being matched carefully against guys that are made to order for him.
Thurman thinks that if Khan wants to make a statement at welterweight, he needs to step up and face Shawn Porter, Thurman and Kell Brook to show that he’s for real in the 147 pound weight class.
Unfortunately, getting Khan to fight Thurman, Porter and Brook probably isn’t realistic, because he’s being matched up against guys like Devon Alexander, little 5’5” former lightweight Carlos Molina, Luis Collazo and Julio Diaz. Those aren’t dangerous punchers, none of them.
You can make an argument that Khan isn’t the one who sets up his opponents. That job is done by his adviser Al Haymon. But you’d like to think that Khan has enough cache that he can veto the choices that are made for him by Haymon if he’s not happy with the quality of his opponent. In that case, the Diaz, Molina, Collazo and Alexander fights should have never happened.
Instead, Khan should have been matched against Brook, Porter, Thurman, Marcos Maidana, and Lucas Matthysse in the past three years instead of the above mentioned fighters.
“Amir Khan is still over-rated because he is yet to face a true welterweight. He keeps picking the right fights and the right time. Devon Alexander? They could have both fought at 140lbs a year-and-a-half ago. But fighting at 147? That is not a welterweight fight,” Thurman said via Skysports.com.
Khan said earlier today on his twitter that he’s going to be making an announcement next week about who his next opponent will be. This is Khan’s chance to show Thurman and the rest of the boxing world that he’s ready to step it up and face the best welterweights.
You got to walk before you run, and if Khan wants to get the big fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao, then he needs to beat Thurman, Matthysse, Danny Garcia, Maidana, Porter and Brook. Yeah, they may seem like a murderer’s row of punchers, but if Khan wants to become a big name in the welterweight division and get the big money fights against superstars Mayweather and Pacquiao, then he needs to prove that he can beat those guys.
Thus far, Khan has come close to fighting none of those fighters, aside from Maidana, but that was five years ago in a very, very strange fight. The Khan-Maidana fight left more questions than answers about Khan’s ability and his chin.
“He needs to fight Shawn Porter or Kell Brook. If he wants to make a statement in the welterweight division, he should fight myself. There are several ways he can make a statement,” Thurman said.
If Haymon doesn’t want to match Khan against the dangerous guys then we’re probably going to see him continue to be matched against light punchers until he gets a shot against Pacquiao and Mayweather. The sad part about the match-making that’s being done for Khan now is that it’s keeping him from building a large fan base in the United States. Yeah, the soft match-making is keeping Khan winning, but it’s stunting his growth because he’s not facing the big enough names for him to become more popular.
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