https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrut8_rxmV0

By Scott Gilfoid: As expected, Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) will be fighting the recently beaten former WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) on May 30th in New York. The venue for the fight isn’t known as of yet.

Khan wants to take on the big names like Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto. I’m not sure that fighting Algieri is the right move for Khan to take. Algieri’s claim to fame is him getting badly whipped by Pacquiao last November in a 5-knockdown 12 round decision loss.

Khan seems to be taking an odd approach to getting a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. Instead of fighting a winning who looks sensational, Khan is fighting a guy that was trounced by Pacquiao. It just does not make sense.

“His last fight was against Manny Pacquiao,” Khan said. “He beat Ruslan Provodnikov, who is an amazing fighter. He beat the likes of Emmanuel Taylor. You can call him [Algieri] an A-class opponent. He just came short against Pacquiao. I like New York. That’s a great venue for me. I think it’s the right fight for me. I think it’s a great fight. Hopefully this will lead me to the bigger fights in the future.”

I think it’s a big stretch to call Algieri an “A-class opponent” like Khan is calling him. At best, Algieri is a B-level fighter, and that’s B-level at 140. He’s not even a welterweight. Khan is pooling from the 140 pound division for his next fight instead of him fighting an actual welterweight.

I’m not sure that Algieri is a big enough name for Khan to use him as a launching pad for a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. Marcos Maidana defeated Adrien Broner to get a fight against Mayweather, but Broner was the WBA welterweight champion at the time of that fight. Algieri is just some guy that moved up in weight for the Pacquiao fight and got soundly beaten. Fighting a guy that isn’t a welterweight, who doesn’t have any punching power, and who recently was soundly beaten by Pacquiao, just comes off making Khan look bad. There are a half dozen fighters that Khan could fight that would be much better opponents for him than the light hitting, rail-thin Algieri. This fight just makes Khan look like he’s playing it safe. Why fight a guy that was just beaten?

Khan would be better off facing the likes of Adrien Broner, who really wants to fight him, or someone along the lines of Danny Garcia, Marcos Maidana, Kell Brook, Keith Thurman or Lucas Matthysse. All of those fighters have huge punching power, and all of them would have a great chance of beating Khan.

Boxing fans wanted to see Khan fight someone good, preferably someone with punching power. But Algieri clearly doesn’t have any punching power, and he’s not going to have the kind of power to put Khan on the canvas like other guys have done to him during his career.

Since Khan was blasted out in 2012 by Danny Garcia, Khan has beaten the 5’5″ Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander. The one constant among those fur fighters is their lack of punching power. None of them can punch, and with the exception of the light hitting Alexander, none of them were relevant fighters. Now Khan is looking to fight a non-welterweight in Chris Algieri. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, it’s a very, very winnable fight for Khan, but it’s also not a fight that you would traditionally think would get him a much bigger match-up against Mayweather or Pacquiao. It’s kind of a step down from Khan’s last bout against Devon Alexander. I mean, I don’t consider Algieri a step up from Alexander, because I rate Alexander is a better fighter than Algieri with a lot more experience. Khan is going backwards rather than forwards with his career with this move.

Algieri’s biggest win of his career was his narrow 12 round decision victory over Provodnikov last year. You can make an argument that the only reason Algieri won that fight was because Provodnikov kept swinging for the fences with every punch he threw after he knocked Algieri down twice in the 1st round. If Provodnikov had taken some power of his shots and focused on throwing combinations instead of one punch at a time, he would have beaten Algieri. I also don’t rate Provodnikov as an “amazing fighter” as Khan calls him. Provodnikov is a B-level guy in my view, who was easily beaten by Mauricio Herrera. I had journeyman DeMarcus Corley beating Provodnikov in their fight in 2011. I thought that was a robbery in plain site. Corley out-boxed Provodnikov better than Herrera and Algieri did, yet he was given a loss instead of a win.

I don’t think Mayweather is going to fight Khan if he beats Algieri. It’s not a big enough fight to get the attention of Mayweather. Algieri isn’t a big name in the U.S. If anything, I think the Algieri fight will bring Khan to the level where he can fight guys like Broner, Matthysse, Provodnikov, Lamont Peterson or Viktor Postol. That’s the area where Algieri is. He’s not a welterweight, and he’s not a big name to get Khan a huge money cash out fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. If Khan wants to fight the big names, then he needs to fight the A-level guys at 147 like Maidana, Brook, and Thurman. Those three are the guys that Khan needs to fight if he wants the bigger fights. Fighting Algieri is little more than a stepping stone for the bigger fights at 140 in my view. If Khan wants to fight the best at 140, then Algieri is definitely the way to go.

What we don’t want to see is Khan bellyaching about being ignored by Mayweather and Pacquiao after he finishes beating Algieri. I can see that happening. I don’t know what Khan’s expectations are about the Algieri fight, but my guess is he thinks it’s the magic key to the Mayweather, Pacquiao and Cotto fights. But if he doesn’t get the fight with any of those guys after beating Algieri, then he only has himself to blame for not taking a risky opponent at 147 instead of pooling from the recently beaten ranks at 140.