Amir Khan boxing news
Mention the words ‘welterweight’ and ‘Floyd Mayweather’ in the same sentence these days and it’s likely that Britain’s Amir Khan won’t be too far away from the conversation.
Irrespective of Floyd’s (sardonic) assertions that he will fight Andre Berto or Karim Mayfield – which you’d be a fool to believe – Khan still thinks that he is in the running for that fight in September and along with the likes of Kell Brook, Shawn Porter and Keith Thurman – is capable of landing the shot.
With the ironically named “Fight Of The Century” now seemingly a distant memory, and Floyd Mayweather having just conducted his first media sit-down since then, attention has inevitably turned to just who wins the sweepstakes for his “final” fight in September – and obviously, when that subject is broached, one man is never far from proffering himself as the proverbial “lamb to the slaughter” – and that’s Britain’s Amir Khan.
Khan has spoken out to Sky Sports to suggest that the dream opportunity he has been chasing for the better part of 2 and a half years now, is finally about to present itself.
Many many column inches are being devoted to the potential Brook v Khan fight, that so far continues to elude us thanks to Amir Khan’s stubborn insistence that Brook is somehow ‘undeserving’ of sharing a ring with him.
It’s a fight the British public in particular are desperate to see – and thankfully, down to this day and age of media saturation via the internet – every verbal barb and excuse is visible and it’s growing increasingly obvious who is stopping this fight from happening – even to the man in the street and the “casual” fan, if you will.
And it’s not the IBF 147lb champion, who has once again gone on the record to state his position unequivocally regarding Khan, telling Sky Sports;
I have long been a vocal supporter of Amir Khan, but he seems to be doing his utmost to alienate anybody who still has the belief in him to back him against his many detractors. He has now had a minimum of 2 opportunities to sign up to a World title fight and he has rejected them both. His last fight was against an opponent who was, with all due respect, completely irrelevant. His excuses are changing every time; I want Mayweather, I want Pacquiaio, I want World title fights, and now apparently Kell Brook is not worthy of a fight with King Khan. It is becoming harder and harder to argue that Khan is one of the top fighters in the Welterweight division and, perhaps more importantly, I no longer want to try.
It hasn’t taken long for Amir Khan to find his way home following Friday night’s laboured victory over Chris Algieri – and after initially appearing to concede his performance may have dented his chances of a Floyd Mayweather fight – a series of interviews with various UK media outlets appear to show the Bolton man has changed his mind.
Last night on regional news in the North-West and now in an interview with TalkSport radio, the former Athens Olympian addressed both the issues of Floyd Mayweather and more pertinently, domestic rival Kell Brook – a man he is ostensibly avoiding, all the while insisting the IBF 147lb champion is yet to prove himself.
He said;
We all witnessed it on Friday night. Britain’s Amir Khan receiving every bit of scorecard and referee assistance possible in a ludicrously scored contest (2 cards of 117-111 were extreme) against game American Chris Algieri, who not being a noted puncher – was a man he was supposed to blow away.
Amir Khan improved to 31-3 when he was awarded a unanimous decision victory against Chris Algieri this past Friday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Two of the judges (Benoit Roussel and Joseph Pasquale) scored the bout 117-111 for Khan, in a bout that seemed far more competitive than those tallies suggest. Don Ackerman’s score of 115-113 for Khan seemed much closer to the mark. With the loss Algieri’s record drops to 20-2, having now lost 2 in a row since making a name for himself with his upset victory against Ruslan Provodnikov one year ago.
(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) Amir Khan (31-3) unanimously outpointed Chris Algieri (20-2) on May 29 and his performance raised more questions than it answered. He won beyond any doubt but did not really dominate the slightly bigger New Yorker and came across as a fast but fragile contender with a power shortage. In fact his lackluster outing may have increased his chances of a big payday as he is obviously not a major threat to the key players at welterweight and he appears to be a low risk opponent for them regardless of the bold hype. Boxing without hard punches is aerobics.
Chris Algieri is perhaps at the peak of his career and he may have unwittingly accepted the position of a gatekeeper/measuring stick of the division after he went the distance with Pacquiao.
After his sizzling one sided performance over Frankie Gavin last night in London – both Kell Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn have insisted once more that they are willing to face Amir Khan, yet while Hearn says pressure must be placed by the media on the Bolton man to force the fight – Brook says he isn’t going to hang around, preferring to chase other lucrative opportunities if Khan won’t step up.
At last night’s post fight presser, Hearn compared the two after Khan’s points win over Chris Algieri, insisting his fighter would end the American inside 3 rounds.
(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) BROOKLYN (May 30, 2015) – Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on Spike returned to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Friday night with another explosive night of bouts for fight fans. In the main event, Amir “King” Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) scored a crafty and hard fought unanimous decision over Chris Algieri (20-2, 8 KOs) and Javier Fortuna (28-0-1, 20 KOs) won a crowd-pleasing unanimous decision victory over Bryan Vasquez (34-2, 18 KOs) in the televised opener.
Below are comments made by the televised fighters after their performances tonight:
AMIR KHAN
“I thought I worked well inside. I’ve never done a lot of work in the pocket like that and I plan to do more of that in the future.