Floyd Mayweather vs. Amir Khan: King Khan Wants “Money” Fight in 2013

Amir Khan, who lost his WBA and IBF light welterweight titles to Lamont Peterson, has shelved his original plans of a 2012 clash with Floyd Mayweather and will now concentrate on regaining his belts before pushing for a potential fight with “Money” in 2013.

This is what Khan told the BBC Sports.

“Maybe making me wait that couple more months will give me one more fight at 140lbs [light-welterweight] and then I’ll move up to 147 [welterweight], take one fight at that weight.”

“Instead of taking that fight with Mayweather in 2012, 2013 is going to be perfect. This is only going to make me more mature, and make me a better fighter. It’s perfect, everything happens for a reason.” Khan said.

The one more fight that Khan is alluding to, is the rematch with Peterson which is supposedly scheduled for sometime in March of 2012.

Then once he’s taken care of Peterson, he’ll have one fight at welterweight before taking on Mayweather.

“The best laid plans of men and mice” [...] comes to mind.

First, why does Khan assume that a rematch with Peterson will be any different from their last meeting?

If anything, Peterson will come into that bout knowing that he’s already got Khan’s number, add the world titles to the equation, plus the confidence garnered with having said titles, and Peterson will be a monster in their rematch. 

Vis-à-vis the fight—it’s obviously apparent that Khan is not ready to throw leather with the upper-echelon 140-147-lb fighters, and that’s notwithstanding the two points he had deducted, either.

Khan was hurried, bullied and forced to fight Peterson’s fight.  In some respects he looked like amateurish—his defense was woefully lacking for one.

He also has tendency to crumble under pressure, and when it comes down to it, Khan isn’t really that good a pugilist.

Being fed a bunch of stiffs en route to capturing world titles has done him a world of bad, and now he’s been exposed as a one-dimensional fighter who couldn’t get the job done against a fighter in the guise of Peterson.

No disrespect to the latter, but Khan was expected to walk through him and move on to bigger and better things.

Those bigger and better things have ground to a screeching halt for now, and any talk of a Mayweather or even a Timothy Bradley fight is overly premature and out of the question.

If Peterson could nullify Khan, what chance has he got against the aforementioned? It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.

One of Khan’s problems stems from the fact that he thinks too far ahead—distracted by a projected matchup with Mayweather and everything else in between.

What he needs to do is go back to the rudimentaries—a possible rematch with Breidis Prescott, the only man to have knocked him out, would be a move in the right direction, though, that’ll probably never happen.

Or better yet, something on the home front—the British welterweight champion Kell Brook would be a good idea if he wants to make his first foray into the 147-lb division.

Either way, at present, Khan is between a rock and a hard place—the Peterson rematch is not a given that’ll he come out victorious, and then what?

Nevertheless, Khan needs to concentrate on his boxing and not on a potential Money May fight, he also needs to cease running his mouth with regards to being the next best thing…because he’s not, he’s nowhere near.