Al Haymon‘s “Premiere Boxing Champions” series has signed Amir Khan on to battle Chris Algieri at the Barclay’s Center on May 29. The bout has been in the works for some time, but the bout is finally signed and will air on SpikeTV’s “PBC” broadcast.
At this point, Amir Khan is doing the safe thing and staying active against an opponent who he is going to be heavily favored against. Algieri is 20-1 and is a former World Champion who is coming off his first loss at the hands of Manny Pacquiao. He won his world title when he defeated Ruslan Provodnikov via Split Decision back in June of 2014. For that bout, Algieiri, who is a former kickboxing champion, came in as a big underdog and he got up twice off the canvas in the opening round to persevere. The fight launched Algieiri into the Pacquiao fight and put a damper on the career of Provodnikov, but his magic carpet ride came to an end against Pac-man, who exposed him as several notches below in skill.
But, Algieri still has some value in his name as he at least held his own and went the distance with one of the best fighters in the world in Pacquiao. In the scope of things, Khan’s big bugaboo is not his skill level, which is in the neighborhood with Pacquiao and those types, but his chin. In the build-up to the Pacquiao fight, Algieri’s camp was fond of referring to their fighter as a “master boxer”, which is a solid way of masking the fact that Algieri lacks punching power.
So Algieri is going to bring his boxing game against Khan, whose hand speed and preparation are world class. Khan is going to be looking to take Algieri out, and really that is the only way this will be positive for Khan is if he can do what Pacquiao failed to do.
Algieri’s only hope is that Khan looks past him. Khan has been all talk the last few years as he has relentlessly pursued a big money fight with Floyd Mayweather or Pacquiao. Though he had opportunities to set up a shot at a world title in a big fight against fellow Britisher Kell Brook, that did not come through. In order to avoid another run of inactivity like the one in 2013 that only saw him fight once that year, Khan has settled on a safe opponent for May.
