Los Angeles – Maybe training along side boxing’s best fighter, Manny Pacquiao, inside of master trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, California has boosted Amir Khan’s bravado.
Because amidst talks that Khan is ducking tough man Marco Maidana from Argentina, the newest pawn in Golden Boy Promotion’s global boxing game is now headed into a collision course with master boxer Juan Manuel Marquez.
Has the young Khan grown a lion heart to equal Pacquiao, in taking on one of the sports true legends with the experience to cause any emerging starissues?
Not likely, the making of Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Amir Khan on May 15, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada and transmitted via HBO can be explained by simple business and marketing.
Khan who has a questionable chin, due to a knockout loss against Breidis Prescott and several knockdowns early in his career, seems to have been away from a fight with Maidana by Golden Boy; Maidana has already taken the luster off one Golden Boy prospect, Victor Ortiz, by making him quit on HBO last year.
Instead Golden Boy is pitting their young champ against one of the games best and a much more polished opponent in Marquez. Golden Boy is playing with fire and banking on Marquez, at 36 years of age, being a shadow of his former self after talking a one-sided whipping at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Junior last fall.
If Khan stumbles, the argument can be made that he was green and wet behind the ears, then re-tooled and shoved down our throats via television in several fights of boxing reconstruction. If Marquez proves to be done and Khan puts another over the hill Mexican legend in his cap (see his victory over Marco Antonio Barrera), Golden Boy will spin the victory as Khan’s emergence as a dominant figure.
In all fairness, in the eyes of the average boxing fan, a loss against Maidana would be a possible death blow to Khan and a victory for Khan would do little to add to his shine.
Add into the equation that Amir Khan vs. Juan Manuel Marquez makes more money for all involved, including the promoter, than a Khan- Maidana affair, and you understand why the bout is being made.
