Amir “King” Khan has finally landed his super fight, although it wasn’t against either of the two men he’d targeted in his weight class. Khan wanted to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao, but was brushed aside by both multiple times. Now he will fight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the WBC middleweight champion, at a catch weight of 155 pounds on May 7.
Khan has spent the majority of his career as a junior welterweight, and has gone 3-0 in three welterweight bouts, all of which he won by unanimous decision. He has never fought above 147 pounds, while Alvarez weighed more than 160 pounds on fight night when he defeated Miguel Cotto for the WBC title.
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Khan lacked elite punching power at the lower weights, so it is a stretch to believe he can hurt Alvarez. It was more believable that he could hurt Mayweather, who is naturally smaller than Khan, but Mayweather explained why the fight never happened.
“It’s all about timing,” Mayweather said (via Boxing Scene). “A lot of people didn’t think the Manny Pacquiao fight would happen but it did, so the timing wasn’t right to fight anybody else,” Mayweather said. The hole in Mayweather’s theory is that he fought again in September against Andre Berto, a fighter whom Khan has beaten, and is considered a far lesser contender. Khan, a Muslim, had insisted in May that Ramadan would not be an issue stopping him from facing Mayweather.
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Mayweather expressed no interest in fighting again, saying he was focused on growing his promotional company. But money talks, and if Khan, already a major draw among British fans, can pull off a shocking upset vs. Alvarez, it would be hard for Mayweather to pass up a fight vs. Khan to pass Rocky Marciano’s 50-0 record.
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