Phil Lo Greco offered Amir Khan fight

By Boxing News - 01/24/2018 - Comments

Image: Phil Lo Greco offered Amir Khan fight

By Tim Royner: Junior middleweight Phil Lo Greco (28-3, 15 KOs) says he’s been offered the Amir Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) fight for April 21, but they want him to boil down to 147 for him to get it. Lo Greco, 33, says he doesn’t like the idea of him having to go all the way down to 147 to fight Khan, as it’ll be difficult for him to make the weight, and it’ll give a wrong impression of the British fighter.

In other words, it’ll make Khan look better than he is in fighting a weight drained Lo Greco instead of facing him at his correct weight class at 154. Lo Greco thinks Khan should fight him at junior middleweight, because that’s the weight that he’ll likely be facing Kell Brook at. Former IBF welterweight champion Brook moved up to 154, and he’s making his first fight in that weight class on March 3 against Sergey Rabchenko in Sheffield, UK.

“They got in touch with my managers, made me an offer, I asked them what the weight would be and they said 147,” Lo Greco said to Fighthype.com. “I said ‘I will do it. I haven’t done it for a few years and I can get down to 147 and fight him.’ That was my counter-offer. Then I started thinking, wait a minute, why are they wanting to fight at 147 yet realistically the fans are hoping to make a fight between him and Kell Brook, but Brook is up at 154. Does that mean he doesn’t actually want to fight him? Is he fooling the public?” said Lo Greco.

Khan is likely going to require that Kell Brook drain down to fight him at 147. That’ll likely be one of the important negotiating points for the fight to happen between the two. If Brook wants the Khan fight, it’s almost certain that he’ll need to drop back down to 147 for the fight to happen.

Khan might indeed be fooling the public by facing Lo Greco at 147, but it’s not surprising that he’s facing a guy that has little chance of winning. It’s been almost 2 years since Khan last fought. You can understand perfectly well why Khan would want every advantage under the sun on his side given his long period of inactivity and his bad knockout loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez in his last fight in May of 2016. If it wasn’t Lo Greco, it would be another overmatched opponent that would have to give Khan some kind of advantage in the fight.

It’s been close to 8 years since Lo Greco last fought at 147 in his fight against Slawomir Ziemewicz in June 2010. Lo Greco stopped him in the 9th round. In Lo Greco’s fights against top welterweights Errol Spence Jr. and Shawn Porter, they both fought him at junior middleweight. It looks Khan isn’t as daring as Spence and Porter in wanting to fight

”If they want a measuring stick for his comeback, fight me at 154. There ain’t going to be a Kell Brook fight. He’s looking for a way out,” said Lo Greco.

I don’t think Lo Greco is being used as a true measuring stick for Khan. It’s more likely a case of Lo Greco being used to make Khan look good so that more boxing fans will eventually purchase his pay-per-view fight against Brook for later this year on Sky Box Office. If Khan is serious about his comeback, he’ll look to test himself against Spence, Porter, Danny Garcia or Keith Thurman. Brook is a money fight for Khan.

Lo Greco has past losses to these fighters:

• Shawn Porter

• Errol Spence Jr.

• Joseph Elegele

All 3 of Lo Greco’s defeats have come in the last 5 years of his career.