By Scott Gilfoid: It’s understood by all that Britain’s Amir “King” Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) faces a huge uphill climb in his 155lb catch-weight title fight against the bigger, stronger, younger and some would say more talented WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) on May 7 on HBO pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan is expected to lose and lose badly to the heavier Canelo. Heck, even if Khan bulks up to the 170s and faces Canelo at the same weight, he’s still expected to get blasted to smithereens by the red-haired star. But, if Khan can get past Canelo, he’ll be the new WBC 160lb champion and he’ll be faced with the responsibility of facing the interim WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in his first defense of the title.
The big question is will Khan defend his WBC middleweight title against Golovkin or will he vacate the title and slink away off into the sunset. As much as I see Khan as a terribly fragile fighter in terms of his chin, I actually think he’ll take the fight with Golovkin.
There’ a lot of respect Khan could get from the boxing world if he faces Golovkin. There’s a lot of money Khan could make in facing Golovkin with the WBC title in his possession. The thing that could prevent Khan from facing Golovkin is Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy.
They’re probably not going to like the idea of seeing their golden goose Canelo beaten by Khan, and I think the CEO of that company, Oscar De La Hoya, is going to do the best he can to lure Khan into facing Canelo in an immediate rematch.
The WBC title won’t be as important as the rematch. The World Boxing Council will obviously strip Khan of the title if he fails to face Golovkin, because his promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions already has a deal with the WBC that they get the next crack at the title. But, De La Hoya is going to want to get Khan back in a rematch with Canelo as fast as possible so that his star can redeem himself and prove that the loss was just a fluke thing.
After all, it was De La Hoya’s great idea to have Canelo fight the blazing fast Khan rather than a slow plodder like the guys that Canelo has been fighting lately. De La Hoya is the one that hand-picked Khan as the sacrificial lamb for Canelo to slaughter. If the 25-year-old Canelo can’t even beat Khan, then it’s going to be imperative that De La Hoya drag Khan back in the ring for a second fight as soon as possible.
It’s going to be extremely hard for Khan to resist the money that will be waived in front of his snoot by Golden Boy, because it might be more money that he would get in a fight against Golovkin. But in fighting Golovkin, Khan would still have the WBC middleweight title in his possession, and he would gain a ton of respect by taking that fight. A win over Golovkin would cement Khan as the new No.1 star in the sport. He would have beaten Canelo and Golovkin in back to back fights.
Khan could then face Canelo in a rematch after the Golovkin fight and try and beat him again. For Khan’s sake, I would recommend having the fight take place in the UK in order to increase his chances of getting a decision. We’ve seen some very oddly scored fights involving Canelo in the past, and the last thing that Khan would need is to find himself on the losing end of a controversial decision.
If Khan can get past Canelo, it’ll be interesting to see if he chooses to face Golovkin. That’s a big risk for Khan to fight a puncher like that, because Golovkin has one-punch power in either hand. He’s not like Canelo, who needs to land a lot of shots to score his knockouts. Golovkin can KO his opponents with one punch. There would be less margin for error for Khan if he were to agree to defend his WBC title against the hard hitting Kazakhstan star. It would be real interesting to see how Khan would do against Golovkin if he did take that fight.
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