Pound for pound the world’s best boxer Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather jnr announced to the world on his 37th birthday via Twitter that he will be fighting Marcos Maidana in a Welterweight title fight even though he had asked the public and the fans to decide who he should fight next, Maidana or Khan. Mayweather and his team are well known for toying with the boxing media and fans alike, playing hype, mind games and spinning webs of confusion, deflection and illusion with regards to what he is doing next.
Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, said: “Mayweather has more than 11 million followers on various social media outlets and the poll was just one of the vehicles used. Bottom line, we took a look at everything that was coming through on the various outlets and we’re fighting the very best guy out there.”
Me personally, from a British interest, would have loved for Khan to have fought Mayweather, the greatest fighter on the planet to date. And like Amir Khan always says he wants to fight the best of the best like any fighter.
I really thought it might happen at one point but reading between the lines Mayweather never said anything to anybody about who he would be fighting and there has been many months of feverish speculations and lots of silly reports that a deal had been done. I don’t know how Amir Khan and his team could say a deal had been met and that they had signed their half of the contract but Team Mayweather had not signed theirs.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but in business dealings in general, a deal is done only when both parties have signed contracts on the dotted line. It seems Amir has been lead the pied piper’s merry dance and now finds himself in lounging limbo.
Mayweather said in a statement: “Marcos Maidana’s last performance immediately brought him to my attention. He is an extremely skilled fighter who brings knockout danger to the ring. I think this is a great fight for me and he deserves the opportunity to see if he can do what 45 others have tried to do before him: Beat me.”
Yet again I believe Amir Khan has been ill advised by his team, or was it he himself, who put all his eggs in one basket only to be left with an empty nest. He should have fought and beaten Devon Alexander, former Welterweight champ, when he had the chance and that would have put him in good stead for a real Mayweather fight showdown that we all could have sunk our teeth into. What’s happened here? Amir’s been chasing fool’s gold.
Lets not forget I’m an Amir Khan fan, and I think he is a great fighter but does he really deserve that big fight? OK so Amir brings to the table the untapped Middle Eastern/Asian markets, taking a high level boxing super fight to a place where it has never been exploited. Raising awareness and making the fight bigger for the world’s media and press, public training tours in the UK and USA, Amir even got various authorities assurances for an agreed military security for the press tours in Pakistan and Dubai were they to happen. So confident was he that the Mayweather fight was on.
Amir has been exciting and active over the last couple of years. However the quality of his opponents since his devastating knockout loss to WBC champ Danny Garcia have not really been of a high calibre required leading up to a Mayweather super fight. His opponents were Carlos Molina and faded Julio Diaz who incidentally knocked Khan to the canvas in the fourth round back in April 2013. The question comes down to entitlement. Maidana is a knockout artist and who stepped up and got the attention of the world and Team Mayweather with a fantastic win over former undefeated champion, Golden Boy Promotions super star, Adrien Broner which clearly and deservedly got him the Mayweather fight.
Amir really needs to fight a big time opponent now to get back in the mix A good fight for him now would be to fight Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner coming off his recent loss to Maidana. A make or break fight for both. It is an easy fight to make as they both have the same promoter.
Amir Khan wins this high profile fight, then that will certainly push Mayweather to offer him a real fight and not an illusion.
“Following the announcement by Floyd Mayweather that he will be facing Marcos Maidana on May 3rd I would like to clarify my situation for my fans and members of the media.
“Despite having signed my part of the agreement to fight Floyd in early December, I’ve been preparing myself for some time that the match up with him wasn’t going to happen, as I announced on Twitter a few days ago. Therefore, this announcement did not come as a surprise.
“I am, however, very disappointed with Floyd and his team for not providing any explanation as to why he delayed the announcement for so long and ultimately avoided the fight with me.
“It has been a very frustrating period as I’d been due to fight in December against Devon Alexander, however, I was strongly advised to not take this fight as I would be facing Floyd this May – and therefore signed my side of the contract on this belief.
“Floyd was keen to engage with the fans and so decided to let them choose who he should fight in his next bout. I clearly won his official poll, by a significant margin, but for unknown reasons he decided to ignore the fans vote and failed to keep his word. Disappointing many fight fans who took the time to vote.
“I genuinely wish Marcos and Floyd all the best for their fight – two great fighters. As a team we have now moved on and are looking at different options.
