You can never expect boxers to be men of their words, and Floyd Mayweather is no different, possibly even being the prime example of it. In his own social media poll, Amir Khan was picked to be his next opponent. However, Mayweather went with a boxer Khan has already beaten in the past, Marcos Maidana.
Why? Well, some might say Maidana is the better fight. Amir Khan did beat him four years ago, but he isn’t the same fighter since losing to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. He doesn’t come with a title belt which is also part of the equation. Maidana recently stunned Adrian Broner to win the WBA Welterweight title, and some might think that his power punching might be enough to at least cause Mayweather some trouble.
But it’s always about money and making it the easiest fight possible for Mayweahter. In the United States, there’s a chance that Maidana is a slightly bigger name than Khan, but not by much. In any case, this is the kind of PPV fights that tests the brand name of Mayweather, because his opponent alone isn’t going to bring in big numbers like in his previous fight with Saul Canelo Alvarez. Mayweather barely (and probably didn’t) get past 1 million buys for his fight against Robert Guerrero.
Khan has great speed and length for the Welterweight division, but he has a soft chin and not many actually thought he would beat Mayweather. However, he did win the social media poll that Mayweather conducted, promising to choose the opponent the fans vote for. Khan won that pool 57-43, but there is more than just his fans in mind for Mayweather.
What? Well, first of all, money. Not that both of Khan or Maidana can have too much leverage, but the more Mayweather gets to keep in the negotiation, the better opponent for him. And there’s style. We can argue about whether or not Khan is a better fit for Mayweather, but there’s no hiding anything about Maidana – he comes out punching until he’s worn out or he has you beaten. Mayweather lives for this kind of fight, and that style should make it very comfortable for him in the ring to counter and dominate against.
Bob Arum warned Khan to pull out of the negotiations with Mayweather because he wasn’t going to get picked. Khan pulled out of his negotiations with Devon Alexander so he can have a shot at fighting Mayweather on May 3, but it turns out he’ll have to find someone else to fight at 147, because Mayweather doesn’t really care about fans or anything like that: He cares about the money he makes and goes into his bank account at the end of the day, while keeping a zero at his losses column. Marcos Maidana, for a number of reasons, fit that description a lot better than Amir Khan.