Khan: Mayweather has to fight me if he wants to be global star

By Rob Smith - 03/25/2014 - Comments

It’s not enough that Golden Boy Promotions has set him up as the chief support on Floyd Mayweather Jr’s May 3rd fight card against Luis Collazo instead of the arguably much more dangerous Keith Thurman, but now Khan is trying to entice Mayweather into fighting him by telling him about all the fans that will be watching him fight from India and Pakistan if he chooses him to fight next.

Khan figures that there are over 1 billion people in India and over 300 million in Pakistan, with many of those people choosing to watch the fight.

“In India, the population is a billion plus, Khan said to the Manchesterevening news. “Pakistan is 300 million, Dubai – so if Mayweather wants to be a global star he has to take this fight with me, especially if he wants to hit an area he’s never hit before like Dubai, UAE, Pakistan or India. If he wants to target these areas he has to fight someone who is known in those areas.”

The question is does it matter to Mayweather to become a global star in areas where there’s no way of monetizing the fights so that he can take advantage of it? How does it help Mayweather if 1 billion people from India or 300 million from Pakistan are watching the fight when there’s no pay-per-view mechanism for him to cash in one the tons of fans watching it?

Khan is talking as if Mayweather will get something out of having all those fans watching the fight. He won’t get anything out of it unless he plans on traveling to those countries someday and trying to get endorsement deals, if possible.

Khan is the one that stands to gain by fighting Mayweather, because he travels to India and Pakistan, and will be able to potentially gain in a huge way from different endorsement deals, but it’s not likely that Mayweather will get anything out of being a global star. His thing is to be popular in the United States, because that’s where the fans are and the PPV money will be coming from.

Khan is so preoccupied with the Mayweather fight that he’s forgetting all about the task ahead of him against Collazo. If he doesn’t win this fight then there won’t be any point in talking about a fight against Mayweather, because Khan will be officially finished as far as him ever getting a fight against Mayweather.