Amir Khan looks for new opponents - Bradley looking unlikely

Article from ESPN's Dan Rafael:

LAS VEGAS -- Amir Khan's camp is moving on to other opponents after the deadline imposed by Golden Boy Promotions for unified junior welterweight titlist Timothy Bradley Jr. to accept an offer to face fellow titlist Khan in a July 23 unification fight came and went Wednesday.

Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer told ESPN.com that he had not heard from Bradley promoter Gary Shaw or anyone from the Bradley camp before the 4 p.m. ET deadline, or even several hours after it had expired.

"I was most of the day in meetings, but I haven't heard a thing," Schaefer said. "Gary Shaw has not called me, nobody has told me anything, so I am going to start now having serious conversations with the other possible candidates for a fight with Amir Khan on July 23."

The candidates are interim lightweight titlist Robert Guerrero (who would be happy to move up in weight for the bout), Marcos Maidana (who lost a close decision to Khan in December in the 2010 Boxing Writers Association of America fight of the year), Erik Morales (who lost a close decision to Maidana in a tremendous action fight on April 9) and titleholder Zab Judah (who was hoping to fight in July anyway, regardless of the opponent).

Each candidate is promoted by Golden Boy except Judah, who is with Main Events, which has done several fights with Golden Boy in the past.

"Those are the guys, in no particular order," Schaefer said. "I will evaluate the options and present them to Team Khan. They are all acceptable options to HBO. They would be happy to do any of those fights. We will start immediately reaching out to these people. The good news is, as a fight fan, you know will see a great fight on HBO on July 23 because of all of these guys are interesting opponents."

Schaefer will be meeting with Khan and his father on Friday when they will be together for the annual BWAA awards dinner, where Khan will pick up his fight of the year award for the Maidana fight at the MGM Grand.

Khan (25-1, 17 KOs) and Bradley (27-0, 11 KOs) were penciled in to meet July 23 in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or Anaheim after Schaefer worked out a deal with Khan, Shaw and HBO. However, Bradley has not accepted Shaw's offer of a minimum of $1.3 million, which would be a career-high purse. Bradley would receive more than the $1.2 million he was guaranteed for his next HBO fight regardless of if he won or lost against Devon Alexander in their Jan. 29 unification bout, which Bradley won via technical decision.

Schaefer said the deal with Bradley was not dead, but that the window of exclusively negotiating with him was now over. He said he will talk to the other possible opponents, but that if Bradley accepts the deal before he makes another fight, a Khan-Bradley fight can still be finalized.

"I don't believe in imposing these self-made deadlines, but what it means is we will now negotiate with other parties," Schaefer said. "If we do come to terms with Gary and Team Bradley, great. I don't think I'll be locking in an opponent in the next 24 hours. If I get a call [Thursday] from Gary and he says they are ready to go, let's get it done. If it's going to be a week from now I doubt the fight will still be there. We are moving ahead to talk to others."

Judah, who attended Wednesday's final news conference at the MGM Grand promoting Manny Pacquiao's welterweight title defense against Shane Mosley on Saturday night, said he is quite interested in facing Khan if the fight is offered to him.

"Definitely, that would be a great fight," Judah said. "He's a young kid and I've been around, but I am still one of the best fighters in the world and want to fight any of the big fights at 140 pounds. Let's do it."

Shaw and Cameron Dunkin, Bradley's manager, could not be reached for comment


Full article here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=6481203

I for one am rather disappointed. Was looking forward to a unification fight. What are your thoughts?

The contract situation Bradley has with HBO I don't blame him for putting the Khan fight on hold. He will earn a guaranteed $1.2m regardless who he fights. Why not fight an easy fight then fight Khan and earn another $1m+? Makes perfect sense imo.

I am not surprised at all. Rarely are these kind of fights straight forward and I feel as though many people were taking it for granted when recent history suggests in anything but simple to make these fights happen.

Morales would be a disgraceful opponent but there is potential in Guerrero, Judah and a Maidana rematch.

Maidana would be the match I would like to see most in order to see if Khan can step it up and adapt.

Hopefully the Bradley fight can still happen though.

Agree Manos - A Maidana rematch is the one would most like to see but tbh all the other options (bar Morales) would still be a good nights entertainment.

Let's hope they both get past their opponents and have a unification by the end of the year. Otherwise it could all go horrbily wrong.

Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

D4thincarnation wrote:Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

As did I mate - I shall be interested in Bradleys official statement. Like Kev says - it does make business sense - but I thought he was hungry for a unification.

Thought they'd relish the chance to fight Judah. Past his best but still a decent name and despite his recent run of form, still not the most consistent fighter in the game.

Guererro looks like a bit of a handful. Hits as hard as anyone out there but fast and accurate with it. If the crude Maidana can catch Khan I'm sure Robert can as well.

D4thincarnation wrote:Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

He has to do whats best for himself financially. It's not ducking it's delaying the fight. I want to see the fight as well but tbh most fighters would do the same.

I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Why would any boxing fan on here be happy with a fighter having an easy fight to earn $1+ million?

Get this fight on, because we will probably be looking into next year if it doesn't happen in the summer.

Expect all the mentioned fighters for Khan to face to be offered 34p and a packet of walkers cheese and onion to fight him and all to reject this before Khan sets his sights on Peterson who is a nobody and shows us nothing we already know of Khan.

Bradley needs this fight more for exposure. He can't become P4P top 10 when hes giving tickets to his fights away for free.

D4thincarnation wrote:Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

Khan didn't ask for blood testing did he?

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Why would any boxing fan on here be happy with a fighter having an easy fight to earn $1+ million?

Get this fight on, because we will probably be looking into next year if it doesn't happen in the summer.

Expect all the mentioned fighters for Khan to face to be offered 34p and a packet of walkers cheese and onion to fight him and all to reject this before Khan sets his sights on Peterson who is a nobody and shows us nothing we already know of Khan.

Bradley needs this fight more for exposure. He can't become P4P top 10 when hes giving tickets to his fights away for free.

What have you got against Khan, apart from the fact he comprehensively beat McCloskey.

The likes of McCloskey and Petterson don't deserve the big money for what they bring to the table.

BALTIMORA wrote:

D4thincarnation wrote:Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

Khan didn't ask for blood testing did he?

Hahahaha!! Maybe Bradley has used something to increase the size of his head! It's his equaliser!

BALTIMORA wrote:

D4thincarnation wrote:Why is Bradley ducking, after all his talk.

I though better of Bradley.

Guerrero would be a good fight and so would Judah.

Khan didn't ask for blood testing did he?

Well if HGH increases the size of you head then Bradley been overdosing.

http://aznbadger.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bradley-alexander.jpg

Morales would be a backwards (or at best sideways) step despite his good showing last time out. Any of the other names would be good.

I would like to see Judah then Bradley.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Dan Rafael is usually on the ball DeeMck.

If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Dazstarr wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Dan Rafael is usually on the ball DeeMck.

He's usually in the Macdonalds munching down 10 big mac meals actually....

D4thincarnation wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Why would any boxing fan on here be happy with a fighter having an easy fight to earn $1+ million?

Get this fight on, because we will probably be looking into next year if it doesn't happen in the summer.

Expect all the mentioned fighters for Khan to face to be offered 34p and a packet of walkers cheese and onion to fight him and all to reject this before Khan sets his sights on Peterson who is a nobody and shows us nothing we already know of Khan.

Bradley needs this fight more for exposure. He can't become P4P top 10 when hes giving tickets to his fights away for free.

What have you got against Khan, apart from the fact he comprehensively beat McCloskey.

The likes of McCloskey and Petterson don't deserve the big money for what they bring to the table.

I don't rate McCloskey as world class D4, and Khan has been acting the tube long before they fought.

I actually wasted my time and money to go over to Manchester (only because of Khan's fight with Maidana) to see a half decent fight. McCloskey never threw a punch and Khan barely landed any.

Now all of this after we were promised a great homecoming show and what was supposed to be for the fans turned out to be a disgusting shade of greed on Team Khans part.

I don't blame Amir personally, its the foul leeches that hang around him.

They are who I would blame for Khan taking on Peterson.

Why are you against me having that opinion?

Would you not like to see him in more hard fights, I know I would because he fights 1000 times better as shown in the Maidana fight.

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Maidan should be rematching Morales. Very lucky there Maidana. Morales was the better boxer on the night, never write off a great.

A bit risky going after Maidana again with a unification possibly on the cards. I would like to see it, but I would be surprised if this happened (fair play to Khan if it does.)

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Judah brings name recognition and money to the table. Plus he moves better than most boxers when clocked.

Have to agree with Coxy, Maidana is the best of those available. Khan got a serious gut check in the first fight, this is a great opportunity to show he's the better fighter and box Maidana's head off, which I think he can.

D4thincarnation wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Maidan should be rematching Morales. Very lucky there Maidana. Morales was the better boxer on the night, never write off a great.

Don't you dare try and take this off subject.

And Maidana beat him by a nice margin IMO, the draw scorecard was a bit of a joke and in reality the 116-112 scorecards were bang on. Maidana didn't look great, perhaps looking past him? Maybe.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:

D4thincarnation wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I wouldn't listen to what comes out in the press as the truth is normally kept quite.

Why would any boxing fan on here be happy with a fighter having an easy fight to earn $1+ million?

Get this fight on, because we will probably be looking into next year if it doesn't happen in the summer.

Expect all the mentioned fighters for Khan to face to be offered 34p and a packet of walkers cheese and onion to fight him and all to reject this before Khan sets his sights on Peterson who is a nobody and shows us nothing we already know of Khan.

Bradley needs this fight more for exposure. He can't become P4P top 10 when hes giving tickets to his fights away for free.

What have you got against Khan, apart from the fact he comprehensively beat McCloskey.

The likes of McCloskey and Petterson don't deserve the big money for what they bring to the table.

I don't rate McCloskey as world class D4, and Khan has been acting the tube long before they fought.

I actually wasted my time and money to go over to Manchester (only because of Khan's fight with Maidana) to see a half decent fight. McCloskey never threw a punch and Khan barely landed any.

Now all of this after we were promised a great homecoming show and what was supposed to be for the fans turned out to be a disgusting shade of greed on Team Khans part.

I don't blame Amir personally, its the foul leeches that hang around him.

They are who I would blame for Khan taking on Peterson.

Why are you against me having that opinion?

Would you not like to see him in more hard fights, I know I would because he fights 1000 times better as shown in the Maidana fight.

It takes two to tango and McCloskey did not want to dance, Khan was tagging him more and more as the fight went on. Neither of them can be blamed for the ref's shocking decision.

You can have an opinion and I can not agree with it.

The fight I want to see is Khan vs Bradley, then the winner will be the true champ of the divsion.

Morales shouldn't even be in the picture, regardless of the Maidana fight. A Maidana rematch won't happen because the risk would be too high. Alexander doesn't offer anything worthwhile for the risk, either. It'll be someone who's a fringe contender at best.

Personally I just wish the promoters would stop trying to hold a guy's career afloat like it. Let the best match-ups be made according to who deserves it, not who's been spoon-fed.

coxy0001 wrote:

D4thincarnation wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Maidan should be rematching Morales. Very lucky there Maidana. Morales was the better boxer on the night, never write off a great.

Don't you dare try and take this off subject.

And Maidana beat him by a nice margin IMO, the draw scorecard was a bit of a joke and in reality the 116-112 scorecards were bang on. Maidana didn't look great, perhaps looking past him? Maybe.

Not in my book, Maidana only got a draw on my card because he won the last two rounds, and this was against Morales who could only see out of one eye for 11 rounds.

To be fair, it sounds like Bradley is putting Khan in this position of having another tune up fight.

I still think the Bradley vs Khan fight will happen. this summer.

D4thincarnation wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:

D4thincarnation wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Maidan should be rematching Morales. Very lucky there Maidana. Morales was the better boxer on the night, never write off a great.

Don't you dare try and take this off subject.

And Maidana beat him by a nice margin IMO, the draw scorecard was a bit of a joke and in reality the 116-112 scorecards were bang on. Maidana didn't look great, perhaps looking past him? Maybe.

Not in my book, Maidana only got a draw on my card because he won the last two rounds, and this was against Morales who could only see out of one eye for 11 rounds.

Good thing you're not a judge then as we'd be putting you in the Terry Mcdermott territory.

Most sane people had Maidana winning and acknowledging he had his struggles. Hearing all the hype it would be a slaughter probably didn't do much for Maidana's motivation at a guess either.

BALTIMORA wrote:Morales shouldn't even be in the picture, regardless of the Maidana fight. A Maidana rematch won't happen because the risk would be too high. Alexander doesn't offer anything worthwhile for the risk, either. It'll be someone who's a fringe contender at best.

Personally I just wish the promoters would stop trying to hold a guy's career afloat like it. Let the best match-ups be made according to who deserves it, not who's been spoon-fed.

I dont think Alexander can bring anything to the table anymore. He has looked awful in his last few outings. I believe Kotelnik nicked that fight and Khan shut him out completely. Alexanders stock has decreased significantly imo.

Oh and by the way, for all its faults Maidana pretty much threw double of everything and landed a bit under double of power punches from memory (online yanky stream).

Barring a few eye catching counters there's zero way you could score it a draw, spesh when he was how far behind after 4 rounds?

116-112 was fair and is generally how most had the fight. You're allowed an opinion, but as usual yours is in the joke minority.

I scored it a draw and gave justification for each round.

For all Maidana's activity he missed an awful lot, so Morales was outdoing him in defense, clean punching and for a few rounds generalship. It's not a numbers game.

115-113 to Maidana for me.

Scottrf wrote:I scored it a draw and gave justification for each round.

For all Maidana's activity he missed an awful lot, so Morales was outdoing him in defense, clean punching and for a few rounds generalship. It's not a numbers game.

Morales faded very badly and couldnt see out of 1 eye for 80% of the fight. I dont think a rematch is too far fetched.

Dazstarr wrote:Morales faded very badly and couldnt see out of 1 eye for 80% of the fight. I dont think a rematch is too far fetched.

That eye will need to heal before he can spar though.

Scottrf

I hope that the minority is treating you well.

By all means please explain to me how you gave it a draw considering Morales lost the first 4 rounds and the last 2, he certainly didn't win all 6 inbetween - again, save for a few counters i (and most) had Maidana simply outworking and outlanding him.

If a guy throws 3000 punches and lands with 500 vs his oppo who throws 500 but only lands 200 then the guy still wins the fight even if he's made to look wild.

HBO scored it a draw too.

Not necessarily, I'm not sure you understand the scoring system. It's not amateur boxing.

I felt Maidana won the fight overall, but you score each round in isolation.

And this is how:

1. Maidana (Activity and left hooks to the body and head)
2. Maidana (Landed the bigger shots and forcing Morales against ropes. Although Morales wobbled Maidana with a straight right so has a case)
3. Maidana (Ring control/uppercuts. Although defensively Morales was far better)
4. Morales (Cleaner work, but Maidana has a case because his punches had more authority)
5. Morales (Number of big shots took control)
6. Maidana (Took it late in the round)
7. Morales (Saw a powerful jab start in this round, bigger cleaner punches. Maidana rallied late, to possibly take it.)
8. Morales (Staggered him with a left hook, sharp jabs and a big uppercut)
9. Morales (More accurate, cleaner shots and better defensive work. Maidana has a lot of pressure early which will give him a lot of cards but missed too many IMO.)
10. Morales (More active. Morales early/Maidana late, take your pick.)
11. Maidana (Clear, big left hook had Morales in trouble and had the most success in this round)
12. Maidana (Slightly closer than the last but I think still Maidana's.)

Hopefully Bradley moves onto another big fight, he is the world rated better of the two and definitely the better of the two imo, he holds 2 titles to the 1 Khan has, he has done more and beat better people than Khan has, im convinced Alexander would also beat Khan, Bradley's beat him, as well as dangerous fighters in Holt, Witter, Abregu @ 147

Steven_89 wrote:Hopefully Bradley moves onto another big fight, he is the world rated better of the two and definitely the better of the two imo, he holds 2 titles to the 1 Khan has, he has done more and beat better people than Khan has, im convinced Alexander would also beat Khan, Bradley's beat him, as well as dangerous fighters in Holt, Witter, Abregu @ 147

And you claim to be a boxing fan?

Dazstarr wrote:

Scottrf wrote:I scored it a draw and gave justification for each round.

For all Maidana's activity he missed an awful lot, so Morales was outdoing him in defense, clean punching and for a few rounds generalship. It's not a numbers game.

Morales faded very badly and couldnt see out of 1 eye for 80% of the fight. I dont think a rematch is too far fetched.

It was only in the 11th and 12 rounds where Morales seemd to fade, down to a great punch that Maidana caught him with at the end of the 10th.

Morales hit Maidana with good clean shot, stumbled him a few times and had maidana hurt more time. I had the fight a draw but thought Morales was the better boxer.

And I have seen the HD version of the fight not just dodgy stream.

Scottrf wrote:HBO scored it a draw too.

Not necessarily, I'm not sure you understand the scoring system. It's not amateur boxing.

I felt Maidana won the fight overall, but you score each round in isolation.

And this is how:

1. Maidana (Activity and left hooks to the body and head)
2. Maidana (Landed the bigger shots and forcing Morales against ropes. Although Morales wobbled Maidana with a straight right so has a case)
3. Maidana (Ring control/uppercuts. Although defensively Morales was far better)
4. Morales (Cleaner work, but Maidana has a case because his punches had more authority)
5. Morales (Number of big shots took control)
6. Maidana (Took it late in the round)
7. Morales (Saw a powerful jab start in this round, bigger cleaner punches. Maidana rallied late, to possibly take it.)
8. Morales (Staggered him with a left hook, sharp jabs and a big uppercut)
9. Morales (More accurate, cleaner shots and better defensive work. Maidana has a lot of pressure early which will give him a lot of cards but missed too many IMO.)
10. Morales (More active. Morales early/Maidana late, take your pick.)
11. Maidana (Clear, big left hook had Morales in trouble and had the most success in this round)
12. Maidana (Slightly closer than the last but I think still Maidana's.)

Decent scorecard

Scott

They also had Hatton ahead against you know who after the point deduction.

Point proven on that area.

Not saying it wasn't close, but 116-112 was a fair result as Morales never pushed the fight enough for my liking. If he'd thrown 200 more then maybe, but as it stands he got outworked and out punched save for the odd eye catching counter - but a few punches don't win you rounds when you're getting moved around the ropes and taking a higher (by a substantial number) amount of punches.

Yes, Maidana did come back into the fight through the middle rounds (and if you discount the first 4 and last 2 then you could call it 4-2) but i still had it 8-4 as a result.

One fight invalidates a companies scoring? Come on, you know you'd use them to prove your points if the argument was the other way, and have in the past.

116-112 was a fair result, not even arguing that, just saying a draw was too, and posted a scorecard as proof. There were at least two (but probably more) rounds which could swing either way and in that case you can't be angry with a four point swing.

Least we're amicably agreeing to disagree for once.

You in a good mood then?

My card was the same as Scotts except I gave rounds 4 and 10 to Maidana - so 8 rounds to 4. But you can see how the fight could be scored a draw. I can't really understand how Coxy can argue against the draw scorecard with such venom.

coxy0001 wrote:If Bradley isn't available (money grabbing) then why not just rematch with Maidana? He'd be up for it, the public would be up for it, HBO would be up for it and no other opponent is ranked as highly as him.

Judah doesnt' qualify having snuck a SD against Mathyyse and beat the horribly average Mabuza.

Is it really money grabbing though. This is his job why would he not maximise his earnings? Would you not do the same? Makes sense to me. Not ideal as we all want to see it but definetely a smart move. Well done to his management team.

another blow for boxing.

the only person id want khan to fight at 140 is judah or alexander.
maidana would deserve a title shot as much as anyone though.

failing that, a decent fight up at 147 or another tune up against prescott to get that monkey off his back - (that isnt racist before anyone makes the terrible joke...)

the general non boxing public still thinks he needs to fight prescott, it'd make him a lot of money for minimal risk.

I really think Alexander's stock has fallen - he hasnt looked good recently and to have a crack at the world title after them poor shows just wont sit right (with me anyway!).

A Prescott rematch is a must at some point!

Dazstarr wrote:I really think Alexander's stock has fallen

It'll rise again quickly enough if he defeats Matthyse. The winner of that bout deserves to be in the mix for a Khan or Bradley fight. Don't see it happening just yet though. Bradley will take a relatively easy fight to bag his 1.2m guarantee before looking for Khan. Khan will fight either Morales or Judah. Let's hope it's Judah.

ps for my money Guerrerro beats Khan - that guy can box.