Right or wrong not to take stupid money to fight Khan And has Khan damaged his credibility by low balling fighters?
Completely right big pay day And no he's the European Champ so after his mand I'll give him this one before fighting TB
I posted this before the fight was announced and supposedly Khan had a deal agreed with Junior Witter. They must have come to a better arrangement but I hear Khan is playing silly beggars with getting the tickets to McCloskey for distribution. He is a big draw, but low balling fighters and then messing them around is just plain out of order. I kinda liked him even after he got blasted out by Prescott. He has been a lucky boy with the path his career has taken and he's backed it up with no little skill but this leaves a real bad taste for me. McCloskey was the only viable fight out there as a tune up. Khan low balled and blamed McCloskey for moving the goalposts. They came to an agreement and he's still messing McCloskey about. I hope he gets sparked out now.
Khan just wants an easier fight after the Maidana fight imo plus it is hard to get one of the bigger stars in the division like a Zudah, Ortiz or Peterson to come over to the UK to fight. I would have preferred to have seen him cancel the scheduled April date and just face Bradley in June but can't really blame Khan for taking this fight as Sky Box Office/HBO were willing to pay for it and it lets the Bradley fight build for 9 months.
Yeah, of course he wants an easier fight. I am not so sure he's got one. He wanted a fight that Sky could hype the **** out of and earn him the maximum amount of money. As Barry Hearn said, he can't fight himself. He needed a credible opponent. He's got one. He's still messing that opponent about. I understand this is a business. I also understand that an undefeated Euro champ who will draw big ppv numbers and sell lots of tickets is worth a little more to Khans pockets than he thinks. His carry on has shown him right up.
McCloskey a bit more of an awkard stepping stone to bigger and better things than the promoters anticipated. Just too much damn money from Khan's future fights on the line to allow McCloskey to win. Now don't get me wrong, Khan was just about on top but obviously McCloskey was more difficult than they anticipated. Khan was wobbled a few times and there was a point where McCloskey opened him up and if he just put the left hook in would have put Khan in serious trouble (3rd round i think) and this obviously worried the people who stood to lose an awful lot of money if Khan did lose. At no point was McCloskey ever going to win this, the powers that be would not allow it. It stinks and there really should be a bigger deal made out of this as it just shows how corrupt it is and how staged the fights are with outcomes pretty much already decided. Its on a level with wrestling. What a farce!
The problem is that there are too many people willing to accept that Khan was ahead on the cards, so this was the right result. McCloskey had a plan on how to approach the fight and I think it is fair to say he was fighting to that plan It didn't involve losing every round, but it was to be there to get khan late on. I am not so sure he would have succeeded, but he never got the chance. http://www.brandhatton.com/VideoNews/18 ... a_cut.aspx There is the post fight press conference. Make of it what you will. I am a McCloskey fan but I am also a boxing fan. In a game of personalities, it is difficult to disassociate ones-self from who you like and what you see happening in front of you. Khan is a good boxer, no question. But all this p4p stuff needs to be put to bed now. Khan is the most stage managed fighter of this generation. McCloskey wasn't robbed of victory but he was robbed of the opportunity.
There should be a rematch but I can't see it being sanctioned - I can't really comment until i've seen the fight but from all accounts so far, it does seem to whiff a bit...
I don't think he'll get one. It was a voluntary defence and Khan doesn't want it. McCloskey was too awkward for him.