Say what you want about Amir Khan, but it cannot be denied how “King Khan” has always looked to take on the best fighters – Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Terence Crawford, and Canelo Alvarez, and Floyd Mayweather.
No, Khan didn’t get the fight with Mayweather, but the Bolton man called and called for it, to no avail. In a recent interview with iNews, Khan – who is training for his grudge-match with Kell Brook – said a big reason he took his ill-fated May 2016 fight with Canelo was because Mayweather “was being a p***y” and didn’t want to face him.
Khan was brutally knocked out by the Mexican star, in the 155-pound catch-weight bout, yet the British star did manage to win some of the earlier rounds before Canelo lowered the boom.
Today, when looking back on this “crazy” fight, Khan says he was asking himself, as he stood in the ring that night, “what am I doing here?”
“When Oscar [De La Hoya] called me I couldn’t say no,” Khan said of the offer to fight Canelo. “Maybe I’m too brave for my own good. Floyd Mayweather was being a p***y and wouldn’t fight me, so I said ‘cool, let’s do it.’ I weighed in on the night at 158 pounds, he was 187.
It was crazy. At the weigh-in, he didn’t seem that big, but when I saw him in the corner I was thinking ‘what am I doing here?’ He had his back to me. It was huge.
It was a mismatch on paper. To be leading in the fight was amazing really. I earned his respect. Yes, I go knocked out, but he is one of the best Mexican fighters of all time.”
Some people actually felt at the time that Khan would have given Mayweather a very tough time of things, this due to Khan’s blazing hand speed.
We will never know, as Mayweather opted to face Maidana instead of Khan in May of 2014 (this despite the fact that the online poll Mayweather put out asking his fans to vote for who he should fight next favored Khan, with Khan receiving 57 percent of the vote; 35,000 fans having voted).
So as ludicrous as it may seem that Mayweather had any fear of Khan, who knows for sure? Floyd always was smart after all.
But Khan was too brave for his own good in getting in there with Canelo (who would go on to win a world title at light-heavyweight) and it’s a good thing he wasn’t seriously hurt in the fight.
Khan is still here, heading into what may or may not be his final fight. And it still bugs Khan that he never got that crack at Mayweather.
What do YOU think: would Khan have given Mayweather fits, beaten him even? In a way, Mayweather Vs. Khan not happening is one of the bigger disappointments of the last decade; especially from a British fight fan’s perspective.