Khan vs. Pac-Man
Khan-Pacquiao bout has been moved from April 23 to May 19 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in order to give promoters some more time to market the Mega-Event. This was revealed by Pac Man’s advisor Michael Koncz.
On Tuesday, Koncz held a meeting with former Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum to finalize the details of the fight. It is believed the fight could be staged in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai on Friday instead of Saturday when most of the PPV fights in the U.S take place.
This will be the first time, boxing event of such a magnitude will be taking place in the Middle East, and the promoters want to make sure they do everything possible to make it one of the biggest sporting events of the year.
Pacquaio’s promoter Arum initially wanted to match up his client against the Australian Jeff Horn but it seems it was not such a good idea after all, as it was shown through the poll conducted by the Pacquiao asking fans to pick his next opponent. The results showed Horn at the bottom of the list that also included Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Terence Crawford. Surprisingly, Khan got the most votes from a 4-fighter list. Even more surprisingly 86% of those votes came from the U.S boxing fans. Koncz saw it reason enough to book Amir Khan instead of any other fighter. Also due to the Khan’s last fight with Canelo Alvarez brought in 600,000 PPV buys as compared to Pacquiao’s 300,000 when he fought against the American Jessie Vargas. All these figures suggest one thing that Khan has a huge following not only in UK but also in the States.
Koncz said:
“When I saw Amir ran away with it, I figured most of the votes from England and a lot of them came from the [UAE], but they told me that 86 percent of them were from the U.S., That meant a lot. Obviously, Amir’s a big name in the U.S., too, as well as in England [where he lives] and people saw it for what it is: A toss-up fight against two fast-handed guys.”
“We just want to do the best and the biggest fight we can, and this makes a lot of sense for so many reasons, We’ll be able to properly promote it.”
This is a huge match for Khan who is looking to fight only the best fighters in the world, unlike many other big names who only fight fighters who they think can be easily beaten. It shows Khan’s big heart. Against Pacquiao, the British fighter will have to bring his best game if he wants to stand any chance of winning, and he is fully capable of doing that.
