The longer the delay of the creation of a Manny Pacquiao / Floyd Mayweather Jr. super fight, the more the boxing community turns to other matchups that intrigue us and that offer an entertaining alternative. One such bout deserving thought and close inspection is Amir Khan facing ?Money? in what would sell out any Las Vegas venue they could find.
Promoters have learned that British fight fans take their stars very seriously and somehow can afford to flood the venues in America when their titlists are competing. This lesson was learned by the visits from Ricky Hatton, Calzaghe, and even as far back as Lennox Lewis.
Khan?s total destruction of Zab Judah, which came to the surprise of many in our field, is an indication that he has climbed yet another peak in becoming a world-wide mega star and his fan base since joining with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card has tripled in size, particularly in America.
The prospective battle with either Prescott or a McCloskey rematch is not really a barnburner when it comes to PPV interest outside of Great Britain. The redemption Amir gets from defeating Prescott in a rematch is a solid piece of TV in the UK, but the dedicated fight fan knows that Prescott is coming off some losses that were below the grade of a top level fighter, combined with the growth in technique and knowledge that Khan has received from Roach, I feel that the rematch will be good TV regionally but not really a great bout.
I would expect Khan to make easy work of Prescott, who in the first fight benefitted from a less than fully developed and dedicated Khan, and Amir seemed to take the power and hunger of Prescott lightly.
Mayweather may feel that the style that Khan brings to the table is in perfect harmony with his slicker sharpshooting style. That of course is providing, Mayweather can weather the storm that Victor Ortiz will bring into the ring during the Star Power show.
We are not assuming that Mayweather will get past Ortiz, just watching the odds and taking into consideration that Ortiz is another handpicked opponent for Floyd?s style and acknowledge that anything can happen on any given night at this level of competition.
A bout with Khan would lead into a mega-brawl with Pacquiao rather nicely as the two train together and are close partners with Roach. With Kahn stating that he would not face Pacquiao then the natural course of events would be Khan facing Mayweather first, and a double main event with Khan ?Mayweather and Pacquiao / Cotto or Margarito would be particularly historical on the terms of money being paid and made. That duo of fights on one card in Cowboy Stadium would be something that I would shell out an easy hundred for on PPV.
Another scenario would be the older pair facing off with Khan taking on the winner but Roach training both Khan and Pacquiao makes that impossible unless someone withdraws from the Wild Card team.
There are other bouts available for all three fighters, yet I think in the terms of money the three facing off in some manner makes for more income for promoters and more attention on a global scale for boxing.
If by some stroke of fortune Ortiz can pull off the upset he predicts or even a draw, then we have dozens of scenarios in play including a Berto rematch for Ortiz, should Berto prevail this weekend versus Zaveck.
No matter how we slice or dice the up-coming bouts for this year and the ones promoters are getting together for next , the next several months will either define the welterweight /light middle divisions or throw them into utter confusion.
