After Post-Khan Layoff, Luis Collazo Wins and Wants More

by David P. Greisman

It had been more than 11 months since Luis Collazo had been in the ring. His loss to Amir Khan on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana 1 ended his 2014 campaign.

It didn’t end his career, though the former welterweight titleholder did consider hanging up his gloves.

“I spent time with my family recuperating and gave it some thought: ‘Do I really want this or should I just hang it up? ’ ” Collazo said after scoring a second-round technical knockout of Christopher Degollado on April 11 at Barclays center. “But I’m passionate. This is something I want. That wasn’t the way I wanted to go out. And I still got a lot of fight in me. I’m ready to give the world some more action.

“That’s part of the whole thing, why I took some time off, to see if that’s what I wanted,” he said. “Waking up at 4 in the morning in the cold and waking up to go running, I knew I still had it.”

Collazo’s loss to Khan was a tremendous disappointment, particularly following the shocking knockout win over Victor Ortiz just months earlier that had resuscitated his career.

“It was a heartbreaker,” Collazo said. “I truly believe life without a challenge is not a life. I wanted to get challenged some more.”

Now the Al Haymon-managed fighter wants whatever welterweights his team chooses.

“I never duck nobody. I always fought whoever they put in front of me,” Collazo said. “As long as they give me time to train, I’m willing to go in there.”

But for how much longer?

“I’m going to be 34 in another week and a half. Maybe another two or three years,” he said. “When my body says it’s over, it’s over. I’m not going to be one of those that’s going to keep fighting just to fight. I don’t want that.”

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