By Keith Idec
The last time Amir Khan contends he took an opponent lightly, the British welterweight was knocked out by Danny Garcia.
Chris Algieri isn’t nearly as big a puncher as Philadelphia’s Garcia (30-0, 17 KOs), who knocked out Khan in the fourth round of their July 2012 fight in Las Vegas. But Khan, listed as a 16-1 favorite by numerous Internet sports books, realizes he cannot afford to underestimate Algieri’s boxing ability or anything else about him.
If England’s Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) loses to Long Island’s Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) on Friday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Spike; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT), the 28-year-old former 140-pound champion knows he’ll never get an opportunity to challenge boxing’s biggest star, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs), before Mayweather retires.
“My trainer [Virgil Hunter], everyone has said, ‘You have a fight in front of you and Chris Algieri is no joke,’ ” Khan said on a recent conference call. “I can’t go into this fight thinking it’s going to be easy. In boxing, there are always guys who are skillful and can beat you. I have to be one step ahead. I can’t really take this fight lightly and think it’s going to be easy, and lose my fight. Then all my dreams are shattered to fight all the big names in boxing.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.