Is now the perfect time for Amir Khan to fight Vijender Singh?

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WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘BUD’ Crawford successfully defended his world title for the second time as he defeated former two-division world champion from the United Kingdom via TKO in the sixth round at the world famous Madison Square Garden.

Amir Khan was a heavy underdog in this fight and rightly so, he hasn’t been the same ever since he was brutally knocked out by Canelo Alvarez three years ago at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

 

Many said that this was Khan’s biggest mistake of his professional career, as he moved up two weight classes to challenge one of the best middleweights in the world.

However, credit where it’s due to Amir Khan because he has never backed down from a fight before, and the way he was up to take the Crawford fight just proves that. He made a solid $5 Million plus a percentage of the pay-per-view sales for the Crawford fight.

However, from the last fight, it was pretty evident that Khan is past his prime now and he can’t take hard shots anymore. Crawford was hurting him with hard body shots and Khan wasn’t reacting well to them.

So, the biggest question which arises for fight fans is, what’s next for Amir Khan?

He could very well fight former IBF welterweight champion and domestic rival Kell Brook. This is the fight, which the British public have wanted to see for a long time. In many sense, this is a miniature version of Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather Jr. However, according to many fans worldwide, the fight now has lost its charm as fans believe both guys are past their prime.

Amir Khan vs Kell Brook could’ve been a legendary fight for British boxing in 2015/16. Instead, their careers followed an eerily similar pattern from that point on, as both ended up getting knocked out by elite middleweights in Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin and then battered into submission by elite welters in Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford.

However, there’s still an option for Amir Khan to score a big payday if he fights Indian boxing star, Vijender Singh. Both fighters have called out each other before.

This is a mega fight in the sense that Amir Khan traces his roots back to Rawalpindi in Pakistan and has said numerous times before that he is a proud Pakistani and a fight with Vijender Singh to some extent could ignite the India-Pakistan rivalry in the field of sports once again.

Although, the problem with this fight could be the weight classes. Singh fights in the super-middleweight division (168-pounds) and Khan is a natural welterweight (147-pounds). However, they both could find a middle ground and fight at Middleweight (160-pounds). Both Singh and Khan have fought at that weight class as a professional before. Singh made his pro-debut against Sonny Whitting at the 160-pound weight class.

It’s a well-known fact that a cricket match between India and Pakistan attracts a staggering amount of eyeballs and that sees hundreds of millions of people tuning in from both the countries.

The Champions Trophy 2017 final between India and Pakistan reached a total of 201 Million people, setting a new viewership record on the Star Sports network.

Back in 2011, the semi-final match at the ICC world cup on March 30 in Mohali between India and Pakistan was watched by 988 Million people.

A similar number to Champions Trophy finals can be expected if Amir Khan were to fight Vijender Singh which would attract high profile advertisers and will have sponsors lining up for this bout. Singh himself has done high viewership for his fights.

Back in December of 2016, Singh fought Francis Cheka at the Thyagraj Stadium in New Delhi were almost 15,000 people saw him fight in the Arena and 60 Million people saw the fight on television.

The fight can also be promoted during the upcoming ICC World Cup where India will be playing against Pakistan on 16th June at the Old Trafford cricket ground in England. In the US, many boxing events are promoted during high profile NFL and NBA games.

The super-fight between Errol Spence Jr and Mikey Garcia which took place at the AT&T stadium was heavily promoted during NFL games by Fox Sports. The fight ended up being a massive hit and sold 360,000 PPV buys and it also sold almost 47,000 tickets.

The fight between Singh and Khan will also be seemingly easy to make, as Vijender is signed with Top Rank promotions and Khan recently fought a Top Rank-promoted fighter, Terence Crawford.

If this fight happens, it will the biggest boxing spectacle to ever take place in the sub-continent.

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