(Photo credit: Idris Erba/Mayweather Promotions) Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KOs) is hoping to get a fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) next year in May of 2015 in what would be the biggest fight by far of Khan’s career.
While you can make an argument that Khan hardly deserves a fight against Mayweather at this point in his career, given the less dangerous opposition that Khan has been fed by his adviser Al Haymon and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions in his last three fights, he still likely is the biggest payday Mayweather can get outside of a fight against Manny Pacquiao.
Since it doesn’t look like Haymon and Golden Boy are going to risk Khan’s hide by putting him in with anyone good that could potentially knock him out again, Mayweather is going to need to think about fighting Khan next year in May rather than waiting for Khan to fully redeem himself after his back to back losses to Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson.
Khan is fighting on December 6th, but he’ll likely fight another soft touch rather than someone that would increase his name value and help make the Khan-Mayweather fight bigger. Josesito Lopez appears to be the guy that Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions will be matching Khan against. Lopez has lost 2 out of his last 6 fights and isn’t ranked in the top 15 at welterweight.
“His [Mayweather] age is getting to him, I think,” Khan said to IFL TV. “I think Floyd Mayweather is past his peak. He’s getting hit. His age is showing now. What I saw of Floyd today, he’s very beatable. Floyd has never been hit with so many punches. His work rate has dropped a lot. For example, Maidana’s jab was getting through all the time. Maidana’s slow. He’s a slow puncher. My crisp jab would go in there. Power, speed, the left hands, the right hands. My height is a lot bigger than Floyd’s. I would really give him a lot of problems. It would be like a game of chess, but I know I’d win that game of chess.”
Khan isn’t giving Maidana too much credit for problems that he gave Mayweather. This isn’t the same Maidana that Khan beat in 2010. Maidana has improved dramatically since then, and he’s a lot more dangerous now. Even back then, Maidana had Khan out on his feet in a fight that Khan took a beating in. Khan’s face was a mess afterwards with his nose badly swollen, face bruised and both ears swollen. Maidana might have been slower than Khan, but he gave him a terrible beating, especially in the last 3 rounds of the fight.
Ideally, Khan should have to fight someone like Maidana or Keith Thurman to earn the right to fight Mayweather. But since that clearly isn’t going to happen due to the soft match-making that has been done for Khan since his loss to Danny Garcia, Mayweather is going to need to take the fight against Khan as is with him having not actually fully redeemed himself.
On the surface, it just looks like Khan is looking for a big payday against Mayweather. Khan hasn’t been fighting the top guys since his loss to Garcia two years ago, and it just looks like he’s been angled for the past 2 years towards building momentum for a Mayweather payday rather than him being matched against the top contenders in the division.
