THERE is money to be made as a promoter – but you need to invest, too!
Amir Khan’s team are finding that out as the harsher realities of promotion begin to kick in.
He’s got a pay-per-view date with Sky pencilled in for April 16.
But despite offering Paul McCloskey and Lamont Peterson a shot at his WBA light-welterweight title, they say the money has not been good enough to tempt them.
McCloskey’s promoter Barry Hearn described the offer made to the European champ as “a joke” while Peterson may be out of the running as well.
Khan is fast running out of options. Yet he needs a big-name opponent if he’s to make the card viable as a PPV event.
Another problem for Team Khan is that he’s got no potential classics for the undercard and he’ll need to beef that up.
That was one of the reasons the public felt let down by David Haye’s farcical clash with Audley Harrison.
Khan complains he’s being treated by his fellow pros as a “cash cow” – I know the feeling.
When I brought Kostya Tsyzu to fight Ricky Hatton, his total package was ?4.4million. But the investment helped turn Hatton into a major star.
One boxer who does seem keen to fight Amir is Breidis Prescott. The Colombian knocked him out in less than a minute but a rematch doesn’t mean anything, though. Prescott has been exposed since by Kevin Mitchell.
Also, Khan has switched trainers, gone up a weight and is now a far better fighter than the naive youngster who got sloppy.
Amir and his team might just have to swallow their pride and dig a little deeper into their pockets.
After all, that’s what I did when I got lumped with New Yorker Dimitry Salita as Khan’s mandatory challenger.
Paying him big money was a pain in the a*** but, although I didn’t like it, I just had to lump it.
