Amir Khan Claims No One at 140 Wants to Fight Him

Amir Khan has pulled a Victor Ortiz, claiming he'll move up to 147 pounds next year because no one at 140 wants to fight him. From The Bolton News:

"There’s no one out there who wants to fight me," said Khan, who flies back to America on Thursday.

"I put the fight to Erik Morales and he turned it down, I put the fight to Bradley and he turned it down for a second time.

"The deals we were offering would’ve been the biggest pay days of their careers, so I’m going to move up to 147lbs because I’m frustrated I can’t get any fights at this weight."

Khan vs Morales is a horrible fight and everyone -- including Morales, it seems -- understands that. There is nothing that Amir Khan is going to prove by beating an overweight, 35-year-old Erik Morales, and the style matchup favors him in every single way.

As when Victor Ortiz claimed this same nonsense, this is probably news to the guys at 140. Lamont Peterson (coincidentally Ortiz's last opponent at 140) is fighting Khan on December 10, and there's also this list of guys who openly want to fight Khan:

• Marcos Maidana, who gave Khan all he could handle last year
• Breidis Prescott, who knocked Khan out in 54 seconds once
• Zab Judah, who claims still that Khan beat him on a low blow
• Timothy Bradley, who is generally still regarded as the No. 1 guy at 140 and now has his promotional interests settled with Top Rank
• Paul McCloskey, who believes...well, something or other

And I'm sure Lucas Matthysse wouldn't mind a crack, either. I'm not saying all of those are good fights (rematches with Judah and McCloskey are unnecessary), but Khan is not dying at 140 for lack of potential opponents.

I like Amir Khan as a fighter quite a bit, and think he might well be the best fighter in the world at 140, as he's neck-and-neck with Bradley, but he has a pretty bad habit of saying things he probably shouldn't, as he's one of those fighters who loves to hear himself talk. He loves to twist things in his favor -- "Bradley wouldn't fight me," which is true, but Bradley also had a pretty serious issue with his promoters. "Morales wouldn't fight me," but so what? Who wants to see that fight? "Guerrero wouldn't fight me," he says, but Robert Guerrero was at 135 at the time and the negotiations for that fight were apparently going fine before a deal was made for Khan vs Judah, which always looked like it was going to be the 7/23 fight when Khan vs Bradley fell apart.

This is just your standard Amir Khan stuff, but if we're going to call out Victor Ortiz for trying to make himself look better with quarter-truths, Amir Khan deserves the same. Why not just say, "I'm going up to 147 for the big fights and because I think I've done all that I can do at 140 pounds"? It sounds fine, it's more truthful, and you can even get in another dig at Tim Bradley if you wish. Ah well.