WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan told fans last night that either today or tomorrow will be the day he finally announces his much speculated over April opponent.
Speaking through his twitter account as he often does, Khan revealed:
“Tomorrow or the day after I will announce who I’ll be fighting, and we’ll be having a press conference this week towards the end or early next!”
“My next fight training camp will run for 9 weeks, last fight was to long, it was 13 weeks”
Khan also commented briefly on the departure of conditioning expert Alex Ariza from his camp:
“let’s see how this fight goes, in all my fights I’ve been explosive, having Alex or not I will still be in the best shape ever.”
“No more Alex me and Freddie have agreed, he’s good at what he did!. The new guy Freddie bought in is also very good, he only uses the best”
Speculation over who the opponent might be has been rife since several early front runners pulled out completely after they were offered low purses from team Khan.
Reportedly team Khan offered European champion Paul McCloskey three times more than his previous highest payday to fight Amir, although McCloskey’s people said that whatever was offered was insulting and promptly pulled out.
Lamont Peterson similarly was, according to team Khan, offered a career high payday which he quickly refused. Several reports at the time alleged that he was expecting similar money to what Marcos Maidana made against Khan and the fight looked to be a non starter.
Since then though rumors have started to fly that Peterson is indeed the opponent that Khan has secretly agreed to terms with, although for now we will have to wait and see.
Still not officially ruled out for the time being though are several other names, most of whom seem eager enough to fight Khan that they don’t expect a huge pay day out of the deal.
Fellow Brit Kell Brook, undefeated number one ranked WBO welterweight contender, has been doing the media rounds of late, calling out Khan and stating that the fight would be easy to make.
Two reasons why the fight won’t happen for now though are firstly that Brook is signed with Khan’s former promoter Frank Warren, and secondly that he is a welterweight. Khan has spoken in the past about an eventual ambition to move to welterweight, but clearly he still has work to do at light welterweight first, and fighting at welterweight also presumably wouldn’t qualify as a defense of his WBA light welterweight belt.
Team Khan’s relationship with former promoter Frank Warren probably isn’t as bad as it was when the two sides parted several years ago, but Khan also likely won’t be in any rush to do business with him again.
Breidis Prescott is another potential candidate for a Khan opponent, and perhaps always will be after knocking a still green Khan out in one round at lightweight. Although he has now long surpassed Prescott and would be a huge favorite to beat him, Khan has never seemed that keen on fighting him again.
Whether this is as Khan says, he is on a different level to Prescott now or whether there is some resentment left over from his sole career loss to date isn’t clear, but either way Prescott remains a rank outsider.
Lightweight John Murray was also talked about for a time, although how likely it is that HBO would accept someone as unknown internationally as him is far from certain.
Perhaps the most likely name other than Peterson is former champion Junior Witter, who also features on the resumes of both Tim Bradley and Devon Alexander. Being British and having fought for titles several times he is well known to both American and U.K fans, and his name is still a decent one to have on a record.
Mitch Williams, Pitt: “Witter is still a decent name and he can punch, a bigger fight for Khan if it’s in England than Peterson who looked terrible in his last couple anyway”
