Khan hopes for Malignaggi fight
Amir Khan has confirmed he hopes to make his US debut against Paulie Malignaggi at New York's Madison Square Gardens on May 15.
Rumours of Khan's next opponent have been rife since he joined forces with American promoters Golden Boy last month, with Marcos Maidana - the mandatory challenger for his WBA light-welterweight title - and Juan Manuel Marquez mooted as potential candidates. Marquez is believed to have rejected an offer to fight Khan on Wednesday so Khan has now turned his attention towards Malignaggi.
"May 15 is the date that I have, the fight will be in America, and opponent - we are looking at Malignaggi," Khan told Press Association Sport.
He added: "We were looking at Marquez, who pulled out, so it's Malignaggi up to now and we want to hear what he thinks about the fight. Golden Boy have put the fight to his promoter Lou DiBella, so we will see where we go from here."
Talk of a fight between Khan and Malignaggi - who was beaten by Ricky Hatton in 2008 - has grown over the last few days after the two fighters became embroiled in an apparent war of words online via Twitter, although the Bolton fighter admits he prefers to square up face to face.
He said: "I'm new on Twitter. A friend was looking after it at first until I took over. My image is not talking trash - I let my fists do all the talking. My friend was fighting back with him (Malignaggi), so I took over the whole Twitter account about a week ago and you can see that it is different."
Khan insisted he was avoiding nobody and revealed there were several names on his hit list as he aims to make a splash in the US.
"Marcos Maidana was the mandatory, but the WBA have said that because it would be two mandatories back to back, they can't really do that, so they have not put that as a mandatory fight," Khan said.
"If I was going to fight someone in America I wanted to fight a big name as my debut, so if I fought Maidana, people would have said it's not the right way to come to America, it's not the right entrance. I would beat him, but I still wouldn't have the recognition.
"So I wanted to fight Marquez, who is a tougher opponent, a bigger name who just fought against Floyd Mayweather Jr and lost in 12 rounds. But Marquez refused yesterday, so now the ball is in my court."
Date published :
11 Feb 2010 - 15:39:39
