In England Amir Khan wants to fight Diaz-Marquez winner

Amir Khan want to fight the winner of the lightweight clash between WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz on July 31st, but it now looks like Khan wants that fight to take place in his home country of England. That obviously would give Khan a huge advantage. In size Khan would already have a big advantage, reach, height, youth and hand speed over the two small lightweights.
But when you add in that Khan would be fighting in front of a home crowd, it would likely be asking a lot of either the soon to be 37 year old Marquez and/or Diaz to be able to win a decision over there with all those advantages that Khan would have. We already saw Khan beat 36 year old lightweight Marco Antonio Barrera last year in Manchester, England, in a fight where Barrera sustained a terrible gash on his forehead from a 1st round headbutt.
Instead of stopping the fight and ruling it a no contest, the bout was allowed to go on until the 5th round, when it was finally stopped due to the blood that was pouring into Barrera’s eyes, preventing him from seeing properly. It was the same got, no worse than before, that had originally opened in the 1st round.
“I’m looking at fighting in Vegas or England,” Khan said in an article at Thesun.co.uk. “I want to fight the winner of the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz bout. That is very much on the cards.” Why should a great fighter like Marquez have to move up in weight, and then travel all the way to England to fight someone like Khan, who has only a handful of experience at the pro level against top tier opponents?
Shouldn’t Khan be fighting someone in his own weight division, preferably WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s) or Devon Alexander? Why not either of those guys? Why not Timothy Bradley or Victor Ortiz. I’d much rather see Khan face those guys than dragging an old lightweight halfway across the world to fight him in front of Khan’s home audience. What makes it even more off putting is that Marquez has been a great fighter for over a decade now,winning three titles in the featherweight division, another title in the super featherweight division and finally two titles at lightweight.
Whereas Khan hasn’t even taken on the best fighters in his own division, and is looking to fight lightweights instead. By going after lightweights, it looks by appearances, like Khan, or his promoters, is cherry picking beatable opponents in order to make a name the easy way. I wouldn’t mind Khan dragging one of the top light welterweights all the way to England, if they were willing to go along with it, or Breidis Prescott. But to take on an old Marquez or a fighter like Diaz, who has lost three out of his last five fights, it just looks bad.
Khan said he wants to be a star in the U.S., yet he’s looking to fight older lightweights in England. He already took on the light hitting Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight in May instead of taking on the slugger Maidana. Supposedly, Khan was then going to start fighting the big names in the light welterweight division. What we’re getting instead is Khan looking to fight a lightweight at home.

Tribute paid to tragic Sutherland, boxer Amir Khan

CELLARHEAD boxer Scott Lawton has paid tribute to Irish star Darren Sutherland, who has tragically died just a few months after wowing Potteries' fight fans.
Sutherland, aged 27, was found hanged in his London flat by promoter Frank Maloney on Monday.
He shot to prominence after winning a bronze medal for Ireland at last year's Beijing Olympics, and appeared to have a bright professional career leading of him.
Unbeaten in his first four bouts in the paid ranks, the Dubliner fought his penultimate fight at Fenton Manor Sports Complex in May when he stopped Georgia's Vepkhia Tchilaia in four rounds.
Top of the bill that night was Fenton brawler Chris Edwards who defended his British and Commonwealth Flyweight titles against Usman Ahmed.
Lawton's Fentos based Impact gym helped promote the event alongside Maloney.
He said: "I spoke to Darren for 20 minutes at the weigh in before his Fenton Manor fight and he was a smashing lad who was actually down to earth.
"A lot of fighters have an edge about them, but that wasn't the case with Darren. Out of everybody who went to the last Olympics he was the biggest prospect and would have gone the furthest in the professional ranks in my opinion."
"He lost to James De Gale, but he had beaten a few times before that."
Sutherland, a double European Union amateur champion, missed out on gold in Beijing following his semi final defeat by James DeGale.
British fighter DeGale went on to claim gold, but lost four out of six amateur fights with the Irishman.
DeGale was one of three members, from Britain's seven man Olympic team, who medalled in Beijing.
Super heavyweight David Price and light heavyweight Tony Jeffries scooped bronzes all three have since turned pro.
Meanwhile, Lawton is keen to return to action following his unsuccessful tilt at the British lightweight crown in June, when he suffered a sixth round stoppage by John Murray.
The 32 year old is planning to step down to the super featherweight (130lb) category to mount another bid for a major belt.
He has antecedently failed to wrestle the British and Commonwealth titles from Jon Thaxton and Amir Khan respectively.
Lawton signalled his intentions in the past fortnight by surrendering his English lightweight title.
Top of his agenda is securing a clash with Mancunian fighter Michael Brodie, who has made unsuccessful tilts for the WBC and WBO featherweight belts.
However, earlier in his career he did pick up the lesser recognised WBF and IBO titles.
After a four year lay off, following his 2005 defeat against former WBO champion Scott Harrison, the 35-year-old returned to ring in August when he defeated Mark Alexander in four rounds.
If the match up gets the green light Lawton hopes it will be granted eliminator status for the British featherweight crown, which is currently held by Dagenham's Kevin Mitchell.

Amir Khan: Will not do battle with Facebook

AMIR Khan has not told his lawyers to take legal action against Facebook.
It was claimed yesterday the Bolton boxer and his promoter Frank Warren had instructed solicitors to contact Facebook over “racist comments” on the site. But Amir’s manager Asif Vali and his lawyer Robert Davies both told The Bolton News the reports were wrong.
Amir’s solicitor Mr Davies said: “It was wrong reported. Mr Khan has not appointed solicitors to take legal action against Facebook, nor does he have any intention of doing so. We will be seeking rectification in relation to any previous articles.”
But Mr Warren’s legal team did make a ailment against the website over material relating to the promoter.
Specialist media lawyer Stephen Taylor-Heath said he had contacted Facebook on behalf of Mr Warren but said violative material about Amir had been removed from the website.
He said: “Amir Khan was caught up in the matter because there was material on the website that was very unpleasant but the complaint was made on behalf of Frank Warren.”
Facebook said in a argument that there was no place for derogatory substance on its site and that any offensive material would be removed.

The Hook…. For Now Anyway off Khan's

By Tom Stokes: Its seems that Amir Khan (21-1, 15 KO’S) has threaded the eye of the needle, at least for now anyway, Khan who disappointment Andriy Kotelnik (31-3, 13 KO’s) on a lopsided agreed decision in July for the WBA light welterweight championship, was now assumed to fight either number 1 ranked mandatory contender Dmitriy Salita (30-0-1, 16 KO’s), or acting champion Marcos Maidana (26-1, 25 KO’s), but its seems now that a both contenders may be fighting each other in November of this year.
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This must be a relief for Khan who didn’t seem to greedy at a clash with Maidana a knockout artist whose only loss came via a frarmented decision to Kotelnik, and who recently knocked out Victor Ortiz (24-2, 19 KO’s) to cause an upset. Roach mentioned that he didn’t want Khan getting in the ring with the big punching Maidana probably afraid of Khan getting suddenly knocked out like he did against Breidis Prescott (21-1, 18 KO’s).
Salita khan’s mandatory challenger is also a threat to khan, he’s a softer puncher than Maidana but he’s still a slick boxer and would believable show khan a thing or two in the ring. But it seems as though Salita has decided that he’s not getting anywhere chasing khan so he might as well go after the temporary title and someone who’s willing to give him a shot.
If the proposed fight does take place then khan can take a breather, but sooner or later he will have to face the winner, or he could abandon his title something I heard he might do if the WBA make him fight Maidana, but whoever khan fights next, I’m sure they will be tailor made for Khan to use his in-out portective (not so exciting) style opposed them, and we can thank frank warren as well for providing the cherry picked opponent, but this won’t help him in the long run, khan’s going to have to get in the ring with the big boys soon.