Amir Khan expects to receive multi-national backing when he takes on Marcos Maidana tonight having garnered support in four corners of the globe.
The Los Angeles-based Briton defends his WBA light-welterweight title in Las Vegas in the early hours against powerful mandatory challenger Maidana.
He does so with a travelling band of British fans behind him at the Mandalay Bay and the 24-year-old also enjoys a fan base in Pakistan, the country of his father, as well as a growing following in America.
However, following a recent training camp spent with sparring partner Manny Pacquiao in the pound-for-pound king’s native Philippines, Khan believes he can now count on additional backing.
“It went really well in the Philippines, it’s good to go there and train,” Khan told Press Association Sport.
“It’s amazing because the reaction Manny gets there…whoever wants to take a picture of Manny, when they saw me, they also wanted a picture of me so I think it’s made me a lot bigger in the Philippines.
“Every time I watched the news I saw myself there with Manny and they always gave me a shout-out, saying ‘we’ve got Amir Khan in the Philippines, training with Manny’. And I wasn’t just a sparring partner, I’m Manny’s friend and I trained in the same camp.
“I won a lot of fans there and they’ll be watching me fight Maidana. They’ve probably looked up who this Amir Khan is. It’s about building that fan base up and I think it has worked. There’s no-one better at helping with that than Manny Pacquiao.”
Khan has vowed to unify the light-welterweight division next year once he has dealt with dangerous Argentinian Maidana.
The Maidana clash follows just one other in 2010 – a late stoppage of Paulie Malignaggi in New York in May – and is his second in the United States.
Next year he will set his sights on collecting other portions of the 10 stone crown, with WBC champion Devon Alexander and WBO holder Timothy Bradley taking the plunge by facing each other in January. Then, he believes he can move up in weight and emulate his sparring partner and friend Pacquiao by winning more world titles.
Khan told Press Association Sport: “I want to get the mandatory against Maidana out of the way and then next year unify the division.
“I’ll take it from there, really. I’ve got the style to move up through the divisions and I’ve got the body to move up. I think I’ll probably be a better fighter at welterweight.
“Being a unified, multi-weight world champion is what I dreamed of. I think the highest I could go to is probably light-middleweight.
“Hopefully I’ll be cleaning this division up then moving up and fighting for a title at welterweight before another at light-middleweight, pushing for that.
“I think I’ve got the skills and everything. I’m with the right team as well and I’m sure they can take me that way.”
Maidana’s fearsome record reads 29 wins – 27 of them inside the distance – with one loss, against former WBA champion and Khan victim Andreas Kotelnik.
“I’m not worried about his boxing ability,” said the Argentinian. “I’m prepared for anything that he does.
“If I can get a knockout it’s good, but I’m ready for a 12-round fight. Khan says that he plans to fight with me. That’s good for me, because when I land, the fight will be over.”
