By Chris Williams: A news conference has been scheduled for next week on January 15 in London to announce the Terence Crawford vs. Amir Khan fight, which is expected to take place on April 20 in either Las Vegas, Nevada or New York. The January 15 press conference next week for the Crawford-Khan announcement will be taking place in London, UK.
This will be the third fight of Khan’s three-fight deal with Matchroom Boxing. You can’t say that Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn has gotten a lot of quality for his money. Khan’s two fights with Matchroom have come against Phil Lo Greco and Samuel Vargas. The third and final fight of Khan’s three-contract was supposed to be against Kell Brook. That’s the fight Hearn and the British boxing fans wanted. Khan chose instead to fight Crawford. Khan could lose that fight, and that would mess up his match against Brook. Presumably, Hearn will re-sign Khan to a new contract. Whether that’s another three-fight deal or just one fight at a time deal is unknown. Hearn cant be happy seeing Khan use up his third fight of his Matchroom contract with Crawford instead of Brook. That was the whole idea of Hearn signing Khan, to get him to fight Brook.
The Crawford vs. Khan fight is expected to be shown in the U.S on ESPN PPV, which is a curious move by Top Rank Boxing. Khan isn’t a star, and he’s done not done much in his career in many years. It would be interesting to know what the break even point will be in terms of PPV buys from U.S boxing fans. Perhaps the money from the UK side on Sky Box Office PPV will make up for the lack of buys the fight generates from the U.S side.
Looking at the fight in a logical way, Crawford vs. Khan isn’t a PPV worthy fight at this point in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. It’s a good regular, non-ESPN+ level fight, but not a PPV worthy one. For the fight to do well, it’s going to require a lot of the older boxing fans, who remember when Khan was a world champion many years ago, to want to buy the fight to see him face Crawford.
If Khan was still the fighter that he was in 2010, it would an intriguing fight, but he’s not that guy any longer. The fight is seen as a mismatch by the U.S fans. The success of this fight will likely come down to what the casual boxing fans think about it. There will need to be a big marketing push to get those fans to want to buy it though, because it’s unlikely that the hardcore fans will.
This will help take advantage of Khan’s large fan base in England. This is also a sign that the Crawford vs. Khan fight could wind up being televised on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK, which won’t make a lot of boxing fans happy.
Although British fans would be willing to pay to see Khan face Kell Brook on Sky Box Office, there would be a lot less enthusiasm from fans to have to pay to see a Crawford-Khan fight. It’s not nearly as big of a fight, even thought it’s just as tough, if not tougher, match-up for Khan.
Khan has a small chance of winning if he can score a knockout. Winning a decision over Crawford will be next to impossible for Khan. He doesn’t have the gas tank to compete with Crawford for a full 12 rounds. The most likely scenario will be Khan doing well in the first six rounds, and then gassing out and getting stopped. It would be better for Khan if he just went all out looking for a knockout in the first half of the fight. If he doesn’t get the stoppage at that point with him pushing 100 percent, then he’ll be finished off by the seventh. Khan has the hand speed and boxing skills to give Crawford fits, but his chin and his stamina will be his undoing in this fight.
Khan will get tired like he did in the Saul Canelo Alvarez, Samuel Vargas and Chris Algieri fights, and wind up getting stopped. If Khan can jump on Crawford in the 1st round like he did against Phil Lo Greco, he could possibly knock him out. Crawford has never fought a good welterweight, and his experience at 140 against quality opposition was limited as well. Khan will be a much different type of fighter than the mediocre opposition that Crawford has been fighting during the last six years of his career.
Crawford has fought a lot of contenders, but they’ve been all B and C-level guys, and not the A-level fighters that exist today at 140. Crawford dashed from the light welterweight division right when it heated up. Some boxing fans think that was a move by design by Crawford and Top Rank. If Crawford had stuck around at light welterweight, he would have had to fight the true lions like Ivan Baranchyk, Regis Prograis, Jose Ramirez, Kiryl Relikh, Josh Taylor and Maurice Hooker. Those are fighters that would get their pound of flesh in a fight with Crawford. They wouldn’t fold quickly with a body shot like former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Julius Indongo did in his third round knockout loss to Crawford in August 2017. A lot of fans got excited about Crawford after seeing him stop Indongo in three rounds. However, the fans were able to get some perspective on that win last March when they saw Prograis knockout Indongo in two rounds. Prograis knocked Indongo down four times in that fight. The first knockdown in round one was from a simple jab. Suddenly, Crawford’s win over Indongo doesn’t look so great. Crawford is a good fighter, but he’s probably nowhere near the talent that many boxing fans, including The Ring, rate him as. The opposition just hasn’t been there for Crawford in order to get a good idea of how good or not so good he is. If Khan fights with confidence, like he did against Lo Greco, he could potentially knockout Crawford. He didn’t look good in his last fight against Jose Benavidez Jr., that’s for sure. Crawford made Benavidez Jr. look like a superstar with the way he struggled for the first 11 rounds against him before stopping him in the 12th. The way that Crawford fought, he wouldn’t last long against the like of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter.
The main thing that could keep Khan from having a real chance of winning this fight against Crawford is his inactivity over the years. Khan has been treating boxing like a part time sport since 2013. He hasn’t been active enough for his own good.
Here’s Khan’s activity level since 2013:
2013: 1 fight against Julio Diaz
2014: 2 fights against Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander
2015: 1 fight against Chris Algieri
2016: 1 fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez
2017: 0 fights.
2018: 2 fights against Phil Lo Greco and Samuel Vargas
Khan hasn’t gotten the most of his career since 2013, and it’s an impossible task for him to make up for that. In any sport, once you start treating it like a part time job, you lose your skills, and are no longer the top level. Khan still has his hand speed, but his stamina is gone. He’s now a six-round fighter, who has nothing left in the tank in the second of his fights. With Khan being matched against Lo Greco and Vargas last year, his stamina problems didn’t come into play. But when Khan faces Crawford, he’s going to struggle if he doesn’t blitz him early to try and get him out of there. since Khan has a big fight waiting for him against Brook, it would be better for him to go out on his shield by fighting in a brave manner against Crawford than it would be for him to try and box him, and wind up getting worn down and stopped in the second half of the fight after he gets tired.