By Terence Dooley
Amir Khan’s twitter outburst against Carl Froch, in which Khan laughed at Froch’s loss to Mikkel Kessler, certainly lit a fire amongst British boxing fans yet Khan, who defends his WBA title against New York’s Paulie Malignaggi on May the 15th, is not done tweeting just yet. Khan, who has been criticised for not taking on his WBA light-welterweight mandatory challenger Rene Marcos Maidana, was asked via the social networking site if, as a title holder, he should honour his mandatories, the 23-year-old was bullish in his response.
“He (Maidana) ducked me I still hold my world title, if I ducked him I would of lost it pal,” tweeted Khan.
Khan did, indeed, step over Maidana to defend against Paulie who, as Khan argued here on BoxingScene, is seen as a bigger name than Maidana in the USA; Rene must now seek solace in a string of HBO dates and a WBO title tilt against Timothy Bradley in July, with the winner expected to face Khan down the line.
This is not uncommon practice in the business of boxing; Lennox Lewis had no choice but to step aside so that Mike Tyson could fight Evander Holyfield in 1996. Lewis had to content himself with a few million dollars in step aside money and a crack at the WBC title, which was left vacant in the wake of Mike’s decision to take on Evander rather than fulfil his mandatory requirements. Lewis, in electing, like Maidana, to play the long game, was the long-term beneficiary and went onto defeat Holyfield, after a drawn first match, and Tyson, unifying the heavyweight titles in the process with a November 1999 points win over Evander.
Further back, we have the bizarre scenario of reigning heavyweight champion Jimmy Braddock swerving Max Schmeling in order to take on Joe Louis despite the fact that Schmeling had handed ‘The Brown Bomber’ his first defeat only twelve months prior.
Indeed, Max weighed in for a phantom fight with Braddock in 1936 only to learn that the champion had signed to fight, and was later defeated by, Louis, who then gave Schmeling a crack at the title exactly one year after relieving ‘The Cinderella Man’ of the belt. Braddock certainly had milk after agreeing to snub Max; he was given in the region of £300,000, not to mention a stake in Joe’s future earnings, to ensure that the heavyweight title was not spirited back to Nazi Germany.
Step asides are just that, mutually beneficial agreements that tend to be resolved over the long term and Marcos, as he had a right to do, made sure that he got his pound of flesh when allowing Khan to take on Malignaggi. With Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, Khan and Maidana all in the mix the future of the 140lb division looks bright; history indicates that the fights will come - later than they should do perhaps but then again, this is boxing.
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