By Edward Chaykovsky

Showtime Boxing analyst Steve Farhood feels Amir Khan (31-3, 19KOs) is taking a tremendous risk in jumping up in weight to face WBC middleweight champion Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (46-1-1, 32KOs) at a catch-weight of 155-pounds.

The fight happens on May 7th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Khan has not fought beyond the welterweight limit of 147-pounds and Canelo at times will rehydrate to a light heavyweight level on fight night.

 

Farhood believes Khan took the fight due to years of frustration from being passed over by high profile opponents like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Danny Garcia.

"I see frustration. I see frustration on the part of Amir Khan. To me, it seems like a very strange fight for him to take. I see a guy who’s wanted Mayweather for a long time and never got him, wanted Pacquiao and never got him, and for some reason doesn’t seem to think the Kell Brook fight is as attractive to the audience as we all do, although it seems like a natural fight that would draw a huge crowd in a soccer stadium in England. As a result, he’s fighting a big junior middleweight," Farhood told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.

If Khan is knocked out by Canelo, he can easily say the Mexican superstar was too big and too strong. He can return to the welterweight division and still have the option of a high profile fight with his domestic rival, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook. With another knockout loss on his record, Farhood feels Khan would no longer be the A-side in the fight.

"Well there’s gonna be a built in excuse, 'I wasn’t really a junior middleweight, I fought a much bigger guy.' But if he gets knocked out, and especially since he’s had knockout losses in the past and he’s been down so many times in his career, that’s just gonna confirm the belief of a lot of people or the perception of a lot of people that he doesn’t have a good chin. I guess he could always fall back to a Kell Brook fight down the road, but he won’t be the A side of the equation if he gets knocked out by Canelo, that’s for sure," Farhood said.