WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan will look to add the IBF belt to his collection in July when he takes on slick veteran Zab Judah at the Mandalay Bay events center in Las Vegas.
Despite this though many of the comments coming from Khan of late have concerned his desire to fight Floyd Mayweather, who returns to the ring in September against WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz.
Speaking to BBC radio London last week, Khan said:
“I’d like to fight the winner of Ortiz or Mayweather maybe next year.”
“I’m hoping to get Zab Judah out of the way and look good against him then get one more fight at the end of the year and then hopefully move up to welterweight,”
Judah of course won’t be keen on getting out of the way and letting Khan move on to bigger and better things, and beyond that there are still other matters to attend to at light welterweight.
For one thing, there is still the matter of unifying the division. At present, Khan is universally ranked as the number two in the division behind Tim Bradley, and many will maintain that he has unfinished business at 140lbs until they fight.
Despite Khan’s statements in the press of late, the reason that Bradley turned down a unification bout with him wasn’t down to cowardice or the money he was being offered.
Bradley’s contract with long time promoter Gary Shaw expires soon, with Top Rank being tipped to sign him in the coming months.
And despite their recent reconciliation, anything Top Rank wants, Golden Boy are sure to try to get as well.
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That being the case Bradley is better off sitting out until he has either signed a new deal with Shaw or more likely chosen a new promoter. Either way he can then expect bigger purses and perhaps higher profile bouts.
Secondly as part of the deal given to him by HBO for his bout with Devon Alexander, Bradley has a guarantee in place for his next fight to the tune of $1.2 million. Taking an easy fight and making a big payday for it followed by another big payday for taking on Khan is just good business sense.
More pertinently if Bradley signs with Top Rank rather than Golden Boy in the coming months a fight between he and Khan could become impossible, ending Khan’s dream of unifying the division entirely.
It is possible that with their recent truce Top Rank and Golden Boy could work together on the fight. But then it’s equally possible that either due to comments in the press or the forthcoming battle for Nonito Donaire they will be back at each others throats in a few months time as well.
Whether the issue of unifying the light welterweight division is solved or not between now and September however, there is still the issue of moving up in weight. Advertisement
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Khan at around 5,10 is a very big light welterweight, and was an enormous lightweight before that. Compared to the current crop of welterweight champions, he will still be on the bigger end of the scale, mainly due to the fact that most of the relevant fighters in the division today once fought at lower weights also.
Moving up in weight to take on his toughest opponent to date however would not be a wise move for any fighter, even one with Khan’s skills.
Manny Pacquiao moved up and fought Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, potentially difficult fights at new weights undoubtedly. Countering this however he also already had a string of tough bouts against the likes of Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez behind him.
Khan’s biggest win to date remains Marcos Maidana, and his record simply isn’t deep enough at this stage to assume that a climb up coupled with a step up in competition wouldn’t be too much too soon.
A fight or two at welterweight to test the waters before taking on someone like Mayweather then would seem the logical choice of action, Perhaps tackling one of the lesser champions or a well beaten veteran such as Shane Mosley.
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Of course, Khan’s plans to fight Mayweather in the near future also aren’t taking into account the fact that Floyd might not want to fight again anytime soon after he faces off against Ortiz in September.
After beating Shane Mosley in May of last year Mayweather was content to sit out for over a year before making deciding to step back into the ring.
Khan would represent a big pay day for Mayweather, but there isn’t any reason to assume that he would be immediately interested given his recent record of activity.
That being the case and Khan having already said that he will never fight gym mate Manny Pacquiao, he might find the welterweight division rather lacking in big names for him to fight.
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