The title of this article could just as easily be: ?Amir Khan: ?How I Cost Myself Two Superfights?? or ?How to Lose $10 million Dollars Without Even Trying?
If someone ever were to write a book on how NOT to get the biggest fights of their career, it would be Khan, the former two-belt junior welterweight champ, who, through miscalculation and flat-out bumbling, has managed to kill every truly big ticket fight he has ever come close to acquiring.
Most recently, the UK?s 28-year-old one-time wunderkind announced that he was walking away from negotiations for a bout with Manny Pacquiao over Team Pacquiao?s apparent slow and obstinate brokering style.
“I’m really disappointed in Manny and his team. They aren’t playing ball. All that was left to do is to sign the contract. But they are stalling,? Khan told The National newspaper. “I have pulled out of the negotiations. I am no longer fighting Manny Pacquiao…I am not going to wait around for Manny like I did for Mayweather. I need to fight and if they don?t want to fight then that?s fine, I have other targets.”
And, of course, the boisterous Brit would chalk up this failure to sign on the dotted line to fear.
?They know I am a tricky fight for him and they know I will beat him. Or else, why pull out of a fight when there is a lot of money on the table??
But Khan?s word on all matters regarding boxing business should be taken with a grain of salt because the guy really has made a career out of ruining every real opportunity close to coming his way.
When it comes to Pacquiao, maybe Khan was never as serious of an option as thought. Khan would be a tough choice after nearly a year of inactivity and his ties with Al Haymon may have made things unnecessarily complicated for such an, at the moment, non-essential bout. We don?t know and won?t know Team Pacquiao?s real level of culpability in a Manny-Khan fight falling apart.
History tells us, though, that Khan tends to say and do things to kill the big fights he needs?even those he spends years allegedly pursuing.
In pursuit of Floyd Mayweather, Khan went from earnest contender to vocal and contemptuous stalker?something that smacked Mayweather?s ego the wrong way and provoked him to pull the dangling eight-figure carrot from Khan?s face for good. And, as may be the case with Team Pacquiao as well, it was not a loss for Mayweather as the return from engaging in a bout with Khan hardly warranted the risk of the bout, itself, and the annoying non-stop media-aimed blathering of Khan.
A few years back, a big money junior welterweight showdown with fellow world titlist, at the time, Timothy Bradley was also on the table, but allowed to fade away because Khan had his eye set on other things. It would?ve been a legacy-defining fight for Khan at the time– and his biggest purse to date?but Khan moved forward, ultimately, to defeat in a smaller bout for less money against Lamont Peterson.
A bout with IBF world welterweight titlist and countryman Kell Brook made infinite sense from the fall of last year all through this year and would likely prove to be one of the most lucrative bouts in UK history. But Khan, while in alleged pursuit of Mayweather and Pacquiao, has never really taken a Brook mega-fight seriously, so Brook has had to move on to less lucrative affairs.
There?s no doubt that Khan is talented and marketable to a degree. On any given night, he could upset anyone. However, his arrogance in dealing with fighters deemed beneath him and his belligerence when working with those above him continues to keep him away from the one big career-defining score he?d like to have.
Khan is now at least giving lip service to fixing that defect in his character and is, reportedly, aiming his efforts at securing bouts with Brook, Bradley, and one-time conqueror Danny Garcia. But one can?t shake the feeling that Khan may always be the screw-up in all things career-related. And that penchant for career self-destruction may eventually lead to him being retired by some random opponent before ever even getting a chance at a real, elite-level showdown.
