Amir Khan: Fight with Canelo is getting more attention than Mayweather-Pacquiao

Amir Khan did a Q&A with The RING, and it's a good interview, a good read, very Amir Khan, he says a lot of things. You should definitely click that link and read it. But Amir couldn't help but unleash the most Amir Khan line in the history of Amir Khan lines, either.

"I believe this fight between Canelo and I is getting more attention than a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight."

There are several ways to react to this. The first is to just ignore it, and chalk it up to promotion and hype. And that's fine. But what's fun about that?

The second way is to relentlessly pick this statement apart. Obviously, it is nonsense. This is a big fight. No doubt about that. But it's a big fight within the boxing bubble. Not more than that, not yet. Canelo Alvarez is a boxing star, but is not a mainstream sports star in the United States, which both Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao became despite the crushing reality of boxing's status as a niche interest in the States. Canelo might get to that level. But he hasn't yet. And Amir Khan certainly has not.

The third way is just to joke about it. Khan (31-3, 19 KO) is amazing at saying kind of outrageous things and overestimating his star power, and this might take the cake. No, this fight is not getting more attention than a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Period. I don't feel like I need to go into specifics to prove that, but as someone whose job is to cover boxing and hopefully draw some web traffic from it and exploit the news for all the juice I can squeeze, I will say that the Canelo-Khan announcement, while lighting up a lot of conversation here and on Twitter and whatever, did not make a significant dent for the casual audience that turns up when they catch wind of something. And frankly I was a little surprised by how little of a dent it made. I honestly expected a lot more. Maybe I overestimated the star power of this matchup?

Anyway, that's a thing Amir Khan said. It amused me this morning. Hopefully it will amuse some of you.

But apart from that, this is a good quote from Khan, too, and one that might actually make you want to see the fight more than before:

"If you think about the fight: stylistically it has the makings for a great fight. I honestly believe I can beat this guy. Everybody acts like he's an unstoppable machine and are afraid to fight him. I am not scared to fight him and I am not going to go in there with respect. I'm going in there to beat the fight guy."

Amir Khan might say a lot of wild stuff, but the man does not lack for brass.