Tuesday, we saw the delay, perhaps death, of one of the best fights in the sport. Wednesday, we got the delay, perhaps death, of the biggest fight in the U.K. and a damn good fight on every other part of the globe, too.
Amir Khan vs Chris Algieri was officially announced via news release Wednesday for May 29 on Spike TV, instead of Amir Khan vs Kell Brook. We kind of knew this was going to happen. Khan has never, ever shown any interest in fighting Brook, instead constantly chasing blue whales like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao only to end up with tetras, comparatively.
Khan seems to think he shouldn’t fight Brook until after he gets a payday from the likes of Mayweather or Pacquiao, but he’s damn near offered them double cheeseburgers and blow jobs, all for naught.
At this point, you wish he’d just take the biggest paycheck and give fans in his home country the fight they want, and give the rest of us a mighty fine welterweight match-up. And, actually, give himself the best chance of landing Manny or Floyd, after demonstrating his box office appeal and getting a win over a top young fighter. But apparently he’s determined to wait, and take lower-risk, lower-price fights like Algieri, all while getting paid what is likely an outsized fee.
Algieri, meanwhile, keeps hitting the jackpot. His win over Ruslan Provodnikov, while disputed, showed he’s a real fighter, although not the the degree that he should’ve ended up fighting Pacquiao (irony alert! low-profile fighter scores big win, gets a fight like the kind Khan wants!). Now, coming off a comprehensive loss that didn’t enhance his stock besides “being that guy who fought Pacquiao and whose trainer said hilarious stuff while he was getting knocked down,” he gets another solid payday.
Brook will do just fine. He was already making plans for a possible domestic May fight against Frankie Gavin, and he’s been called out by Keith Thurman, Juan Manuel Marquez, Brandon Rios, Jessie Vargas and Andre Berto, in that order of desirability. And maybe Khan will finally stop saying “I’ll fight Brook later” and actually do it.
But in a year where we are getting a long-delayed, much-desired fight in Mayweather vs Pacquiao, it’s a bummer that we’re losing out on a couple others so close to it.
(Amir Khan in February, above, via Nigel Roddis, Getty)
