Amir Khan Says Floyd Mayweather Is Ducking Manny Pacquiao

Despite the fact that he defended Floyd Mayweather Jr's controversial knockout of Victor Ortiz on Saturday, Amir Khan still feels that Floyd is ducking his Wild Card Gym mate Manny Pacquiao:

"I really think he is ducking him because Manny Pacquiao is a huge name in America. He gets huge pay-per-view numbers and, whoever he fights, he sells out the arena," Khan said. "But I heard Mayweather versus Ortiz wasn't even a sell out and there were a lot of tickets left. If that was Manny it would have been sold out straight away.

"I think Mayweather comes out with a lot of excuses. That's what makes him. A lot of people hate him and watch him, wanting him to get beat. But there are a lot of people who love him as well. That's just his character."

Now who knows how much Khan really believes in this. It's not like he could be expected to go out there and say that he thinks Manny should "take the test" and all that, because the two work together very frequently. And Khan and Pacquiao are, by all accounts, friends as well as professional partners.

But there's also no reason to believe he's fibbing, either. It's not like it's an unusual opinion or anything.

I do wonder if Khan hopes that Mayweather continues "ducking" Pacquiao, given that it would keep him arguably the frontrunner to be Floyd's next opponent in 2012. And I also wonder how that will all work out. Look, if Amir Khan, with the same trainer (Freddie Roach) and the same strength and conditioning coach (Alex Ariza), were to fight Mayweather, which requires doing all the random drug testing, would that make in the general public's opinion Pacquiao look even worse, and perhaps even more singularly to blame for not doing what everyone else has done?