Photo by LiveFight.com
Once upon a time, Amir Khan and Tim Bradley seemed to be on a collision course. Both were young, Light Welterweight titlists and seemingly the future of boxing.
On Saturday, December 13, 2014 the two fighters headline in Las Vegas. The thing is, they’re not fighting each other—or even on the same card for that matter.
Bradley is on the comeback trail, looking to notch his first victory since dropping his first professional bout (officially) to Manny Pacquiao earlier this year. He’ll be taking on tough Argentine contender, Diego Chaves live on HBO.
Khan on the other hand will be taking on Devon Alexander, a man Bradley handed his first loss to back in January of 2011. That bout will be shown live on Showtime.
Since a proposed unification fight between Bradley and Khan fell apart in 2011, each man has gone through their ups and downs. Bradley beat Pacquiao in their first bout, but the unprecedented backlash he received left him reeling.
Bradley returned after that fight looking to win fans over against a relatively unknown fighter named Ruslan Provodnikov. What ensued was a classic war—the type of fight that had never been part of Bradley’s style, and one that certainly changed a lot of fans’ perspective of “Desert Storm.”
Around the time Bradley beat Pacquiao, Khan got starched by Danny Garcia.
Khan’s reputation took a pretty hard hit as boxing heads clamored that the Brit was overrated and that his chin was suspect—something that more often than not cannot be fixed.
The KO disaster against Garcia—coupled with a controversial decision loss to Lamont Peterson before that—prompted Khan to change trainers from Freddie Roach to Virgil Hunter. Since then, Khan has been on a mission to repair his standing as a top-notch fighter.
While Bradley has had two mega bouts with Khan’s former stable mate, Manny Pacquiao, the British fighter is still searching for a huge pay-per-view showdown with pound-for-pound king, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Will a victory over Alexander be enough to convince the boxing public that Khan vs. Mayweather is a legitimate scrap? Probably not, and the main reason is because the only matchup people really want to see at this point is Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. No knock on Khan, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Could we possibly see a Bradley vs. Khan matchup in the future? Eh, probably not.
Bradley is promoted by Top Rank and Khan by Golden Boy, and although the two have begun to play nice lately, the X factor is Khan’s manager, Al Haymon.
Haymon’s involvement with Khan makes all logic go out the window—as evidenced by former WBO Middleweight Champion Peter Quillin’s vacating of the title and reluctance to accept millions of dollars.
Instead of a showdown with Bradley, Khan will likely continue to petition for a shot against Mayweather. Whether he gets that shot remains to be seen.
Both Bradley and Khan still have bright futures in the sport, but at this point it just seems that they’re running in opposite directions.
