By Tim Royner: Amir Khan is angry about Phil Lo Greco bringing up his wife at the kickoff press conference earlier this week, according to promoter Eddie Hearn. Lo Greco ended up with a glass of water thrown into his face by an angry Khan (31-4, 19 KOs). Lo Greco said that he was only repeating things that Khan had said himself on Twitter to his many followers about his life, and he thinks he should keep these types of comments to himself rather than voicing them to his boxing fans.
Khan will be fighting Lo Greco (28-3, 15 KOs) on April 21 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. This is a fight that neither guy can afford to lose. Lo Greco says he’ll have to consider his career options if he loses to Khan. Hearn says it’s over with for Khan if he loses this fight to Lo Greco. Khan isn’t saying anything about retiring if he gets beaten, which makes me believe he’ll continue with his career until the bitter end no matter how badly he loses to the 33-year-old Canadian fighter.
“I think Amir Khan has spite now,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “If he wasn’t motivated before this fight, now he’s motivated to the max. I’ve not seen Amir motivated like that before. He’s got desire. He wants to be world champion again, but now he wants to slap Phil Lo Greco all over the ring, and he’s get a chance to do that on April 21st,” Hearn said.
Khan got in trouble when he lost his cool in his knockout loss to Danny Garcia in 2012. Khan was worked up by Garcia and his father Angel Garcia before the fight. Angel has gotten Khan very angry with his trash talking, and it didn’t work out well for him on the night of the fight. Danny Garcia hurt Khan with a left hook in round 3, and he never recovered from the shot. In the 4th, Garcia finished Khan off. Khan’s career has been on the skids ever since then.
”Amir has been out of the ring for 2 years,” Hearn said. ”He got knocked out in his last fight. This is a perfectly fine opponent, someone that has been at world level. He boxed Errol Spence on 48 hours’ notice. Is Amir Khan still an elite world fight? We’ll find out on April 21st. This guy can mix it at world level. Amir Khan in my opinion is, but we’ll have to find out on April 21st,” Hearn said.
Hearn is gambling that Khan is still the fighter that he once was years ago when he was knocking out guys like Paulie Malignaggi and Zab Judah. Those wins were so long ago that they no longer mean much of anything. Khan is not that fighter any longer, and even if he were, the welterweight division is filled with fighters that have the kind of power to knock him out just like Saul Canelo Alvarez did in their fight in 2016. Hearn might be just paying lip service in saying positive stuff about Khan. It doesn’t matter what happens Khan after he faces Kell Brook later this year. That fight will bring a lot of money to Hearn’s Matchroom Sport promotional company from all the pay-per-view buys from Sky Box Office. Khan gets knocked unconscious by Brook and his career ends with that loss, it won’t be a huge loss for Hearn. He’ll have gotten 3 good fights out of Khan and the 1 big one against Brook that he’s been craving for all these years.
“If I can’t beat Amir Khan, then I’m probably going to think twice what I want to do with my career,” Lo Greco said to IFL.
Lo Greco’s career has already slowed to a crawl in the last 2 years. He’s not active like he used to be in fighting 3 times per year. in the last 2 years, Lo Greco has fought just 1 time per year in 2016 and 2017. When you get a fighter in his 30s fighting just once a year, it’s generally a sign that their career has no longer become a huge priority with them. It’s also a strong signal that they won’t be fighting too much longer. If Lo Greco doesn’t get favorable results against the 31-year-old Khan on April 21, he’ll at least have a good excuse and a decent payday to retire on. For Lo Greco, there probably won’t ever be another Khan-like payday for him. This was just an incredibly lucky break for Lo Greco. He hit the lottery in trash talking his way into the Khan fight. He needs to enjoy the payday and start thinking of what he’s going to do if the fight has a bad ending with him losing. Khan will be meeting a similar fate soon enough when he faces Brook. He’ll have to face the same question that Lo Greco will be on April 21.
“He don’t want to fight Kell Brook. He would have fought him when he was still the IBF champion of the world,” Lo Greco said. ”He signed with Eddie Hearn, says he wanted to fight Kell Brook. He always gives you the ‘if.’ I’m going for the knockout. I just want to be in a dog fight,” Lo Greco said.
Khan might want to mix it up with Lo Greco. When Khan fights in front of cheering boxing fans, he tends to try and slug. The last time Khan fought in the UK was against Julio Diaz in 2013, and he was getting hurt by Diaz because of the reckless he was fighting on the night. If Khan chooses to fight like that against Lo Greco, he could get hurt even worse, because he’s a bigger puncher than Diaz. Lo Greco is a true junior middleweight. The only question is will Lo Greco be weight drained from having get down to the 150 lb. catch-weight for this fight. It’s not going to be easy for Lo Greco to drop the weight, because he’s gotten kind of fat from eating since his last fight in June of last year against Jesus Gurrola. Lo Greco was seen stuffing his face with strawberries and whip cream.
It’s obvious that Khan is only thinking of Brook now because he realizes the end is near for both in terms of their careers. They’re both 31, which isn’t old for a boxer, but they’re both no longer able to compete with the best in their divisions. Brook is falling apart physically, and he’s not going to last long in the 154 division. Once Brook starts fighting the top fighters in that division, he’ll start experiencing more losses, and he’ll likely hang up his gloves at that time. Khan can’t hang with the best welterweights, and that’s obvious. I don’t think he ever could.
”I wonder what size the ring will be, 30 x 30? You guys thought I was going to come here [and say], ‘Ah, thank you for the opportunity.’ Absolutely not, Man. I’m here to fight,” Lo Greco said.
It might be a big ring size for the Khan-Lo Greco fight, but it probably doesn’t matter. Khan will have a big advantage in talent and boxing skills over Lo Greco no matter what size the ring is. Lo Greco’s best chance of winning this fight is to load on his shots and go for Khan’s chin. Lo Greco has got to head hunt as much as possible.