Amir Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter is really beating the drum in hopes that Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t slip away and leave Khan with a much lesser fight. In trying to sell Khan as the perfect opponent for Mayweather’s next fight on May 3rd, Hunter is being vocal about his belief that the struggling Khan can pull off an upset and beat Mayweather in this fight. As for why Khan keeps getting knocked out, Hunter blames on Khan being at the wrong weight.
Hunter feels that now that Khan has moved up to welterweight the knockout defeats he’s been suffering will disappear. I’m not sure that I agree with him, but if that’s what he believes then I guess we’re going to find if he’s right sooner or later when Khan starts fighting again. Khan hasn’t fought since last April when he beat past his prime former lightweight champion Julio Diaz by a controversial 12 round decision in London.
Boxing fans with realistic expectations cannot have been too disappointed with what 2013.
WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana says that he and his team hasn’t been contacted about a potential unification bout against WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 3rd. While there have been speculation that Mayweather might choose to fight the popular Maidana rather than Amir Khan, it’s not happened as of yet, according to Maidana. He’s clear that he wants the fight with Mayweather, but he’s not going to chase him and push for the fight like some other fighters have done recently.
As boxing fans may have read by now, Amir Khan, the former WBA/IBF 140-pound champion, has put pen to paper to face superstar Floyd Mayweather Junior next May and is awaiting Floyd’s signature on the contract. This match-up, though derided by many, has long been expected (at least for a number of months now) and not too many people would be shocked if the match-up went ahead.
In an interesting confession, Amir Khan (28-3, 18 KO’s) says he’s already inked his part of the contract for a big fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s), but he’s still waiting and hoping that Mayweather will sign. Khan isn’t saying when the contract was sent to him and how long he’s been waiting on Mayweather.
WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) thinks he has a good chance of being the next opponent for Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) on April 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Provodnikov says he didn’t want the fight originally, but he’s changed his mind about it and he’s willing to fight Pacquiao in April.
Barring any kind of re-injury to his jaw during training, WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) will be back in the ring on March 1st against his mandatory challenger from America Terence Crawford (22-0, 16 KO’s) in a fight at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Burns is being pushed into this fight by the World Boxing Organization after they ordered the fight to take place next. Burns wanted to fight a rematch against Raymundo Beltran to clear up the mess from their fight last September that ended in a 12 round draw in Glasgow.
WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin believes that Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s), who has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights, will give Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) a lot of problems with his talent, and he feels this is a good fight for business. Golovkin thinks Mayweather will struggle with Khan for some reason, and he’s very interested in seeing this fight. And what’s interesting is that Golovkin thinks the boxing public will want to see Mayweather fight Khan.
2013 will go down as one of the best years of boxing in recent history. Thanks to big fights, big shocks and big knockouts, fight fans got everything they could have wanted in 2013.