By Scott Gilfoid: Former Amir Khan victim Paulie Malignaggi is singing Khan’s praises in building him up and saying he would give boxing’s No.1 superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) big, big problems if Mayweather were to grace Khan with a fight instead of ignoring him the way he’s been doing in the last couple of years.
Malignaggi feels that the 5’10” Khan’s height, reach, hand speed, mobility and his way of controlling the range in his fights would give Mayweather all kinds of problems in a head to head bout next September.
“I’m telling you, Amir Khan gives Floyd Mayweather problems. Range control is a big part of Floyd Mayweather’s arsenal,” Malignaggi said via Skysports.com. “It is tougher to control range on a guy who is as tall, lengthy and busy as Amir Khan, who has a very good jab.”
Sounds like a good pipe dream on Malignaggi’s part, but unfortunately there’s no market for a Mayweather-Khan mismatch in the U.S. Khan’s an unknown in the United States among casual boxing fans, and Mayweather can accomplish a heck of a lot more by taking on unbeaten fighters like Danny Garcia, Gennady Golovkin or Keith Thurman than he can in fighting Khan.
The last time I checked, Khan had been beaten three times in his career with two of the losses coming by way of knockout. As such, there’s really no gain for Mayweather throwing a bone to Khan in giving him a mercy fight because the guy has been beaten three times already, he’s no attempt to avenge those three defeats, and he’s been taking on tune-up level opponents in the past two years. In other words, Khan is spinning his wheels rather than progressing as a fighter.
The problem with Malignaggi is he’s kind of isolated with his opinion and out on the fringe, as very few people agree with him. Further, it makes sense that Malignaggi is in awe of Khan given how badly he was beaten by him four years ago in his 11th round knockout loss. Of course, Malignaggi was also beaten by Shawn Porter much faster in losing a 4th round knockout defeat in April of 2014, and Malignaggi was stopped by Ricky Hatton in the 11th round in 2008. One wonders why Malignaggi isn’t building up Porter as the next big hope to beat Mayweather? I mean, Porter did do a better job of whipping Malignaggi than Khan did, didn’t he? Khan stops Malignaggi in 11 rounds and Porter beats him in 4 rounds. Do the math. Malignaggi should be building Porter up, not Khan.
“Amir Khan, I feel, is a big threat. Amir controls range very well and styles make fights,” Malignaggi said. “Manny is shorter, he doesn’t have as good a jab as Amir. I’m very curious about that fight. Some people may think I’m crazy, some people might agree with me, but I think Khan’s style poses a problem for Floyd Mayweather.”
Khan a big threat to Mayweather? Nah, get out of here, Malignaggi. Khan might be a big threat to Carlos Molina, Malignaggi, Luis Collozo, Julio Diaz and Devon Alexander, but he definitely isn’t a big threat to Mayweather.
Believe me, Khan will be ignored by Mayweather for his final fight in September. Instead of wasting his time fighting a guy with a bunch of unavenged defeats on his resume, Mayweather will focus on facing some high quality fighters with other unbeaten records or a large fan base in the U.S. Khan has neither of those things going for him. It doesn’t matter how high Malignaggi is on his ability to control range against guys with no punching power, but the fact is Khan has a flawed record, he’s not avenged his losses, and he’s not fighting the guys he needs to fight for him to get a cash out fight against Mayweather.
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