According to Amir Khan himself, the Bolton man wanted a fight with superstar Floyd Mayweather Junior so badly, he offered to fight the 49-0 master for free. Speaking with TMZ Sports, Khan – who got a massive fight with Canelo Alvarez after unsuccessfully chasing Floyd and Manny Pacquiao – also said he had no option but to move up in weight because “no-one in my division wanted to fight me.”
“We thought we got very close to making that fight happen,” Khan said of a Mayweather super-fight. “Floyd, to be honest, is scared to fight me. I did everything to make that fight happen. I spoke to my team, and I even said, ‘I’ll fight you for free,’ just to show the world that I’m a better fighter than him, but he just didn’t want to fight me and wanted the easy way out. No-one in my division (welterweight) wanted to fight me. Mayweather let me down. Pacquiao let me down. Danny Garcia let me down. So I have to move up – I want the big fights.”
And if Khan can win on May 7th against Canelo in what is the biggest gamble of his entire career, he will likely be able to get any big fight he wants. As to whether or not nobody at welterweight would fight him, well, we all know IBF champ Kell Brook would. Still, Garcia, or at least his dad, said he was not interested in fighting Khan a second time, and Pacquiao opted for that third fight with Tim Bradley. So Khan, it seems, had two big-fight options: fight Brook in a UK blockbuster or take the Canelo fight that was offered to him.
Who knows, if Khan does manage to pull it off in May, maybe Mayweather – who, let’s face it, everyone thinks will definitely box again at least once – will return to face him to prove he is not “scared.” Only here, Khan would not fight the fight for free!
Khan will be one hot ticket if he can break Mexican hearts over Cinco de Mayo weekend.