AMIR KHAN does not expect to fight again until 2016. With Floyd Mayweather announcing his retirement, Khan has switched his focus to getting boxing’s other superstar – Manny Pacquiao. Discussions are progressing. Khan did sound optimistic saying, “The Pacquiao fight, basically my team’s taking care of everything. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I’m one of those guys, I’ll fight anyone. Whoever’s in front of me. Pacquiao is a fight I’d like to have because styles make fights. Me and Pacquiao used to train together as well, used to spar together, we are friends but sometimes friends have to fight each other.
“At this moment in time I think it can happen, it’s all about just doing the little things, contracts and stuff. I’ve left it to my team. My team takes care of it. It’s a good fight for me. I wanted the Floyd Mayweather fight. Floyd in a way he chickened out, he didn’t give me the fight. Three years he was saying he was going to give me the fight, then he didn’t give me the fight. So obviously Manny Pacquiao I believe after Floyd Mayweather is the best fighter. So I want to fight the best names.”
Amir gave his take on why he believes Mayweather elected not to take him on, looking in particular at Floyd’s last fight against Andre Berto. “Mayweather’s very beatable,” Khan said. “If you look at when he fought against Berto. He was making a few mistakes, he was getting caught a lot, something I’ve never seen before. Mayweather normally is a sharp fighter and never normally gets caught. But you could see him, maybe the age is getting to him, maybe that’s why he’s called it a day and maybe that’s one of the reasons why he didn’t fight me. Because he knew that Amir Khan’s going to give him the biggest problems in his career.”
