By Edward Chaykovsky
British star Amir Khan (31-3, 19KOs) is very confident in his ability to upset the odds on May 7th, when he moves up by eight pounds to challenge WBC middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez at a catch-weight of 155-pounds at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan says it was very hard to keep the fight a secret from his friends. The announcement last Tuesday caught everyone offguard.
Even Khan's friends were stunned by the information. HBO Pay-Per-View will carry the fight. Khan appears in his first major pay-per-view headliner after missing out on fights with Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Khan says his friends were asking him on a daily basis to reveal his next opponent. All sorts of names were being thrown at him - but nobody mentioned Canelo.
"It was very hard [to keep it a secret]. All of my friends were asking me 'who are you going to fight next?' All of these names were being thrown at me, but Alvarez was one name that nobody expected me to fight - because he's in a different weight class, he's a world champion. And I wanted to win a world title at 147, in the welterweight division. So when I announced Alvarez people were shocked. I think that's what makes this fight even bigger, because everyone was shocked," Khan told Daily Express.
"People are going to keep wondering - 'Is the weight going to be a problem? Is Amir's speed going to be a problem for Canelo? Is Canelo's power going to be a problem for Amir?' I really think it's a 50-50 fight. Canelo has a lot of power and I have a lot of skill, movement and experience. I really wanted to give British fights fans a big fight and you can't get bigger than this."
Khan is a huge underdog in the contest. He plans to increase his muscle mass and add additional power to his arsenal.
"I'm the guy who's going to go in the ring. I really believe in myself in this fight. I have enough time to train for that fight. If I had six or seven weeks, it would be really hard. But since I got twelve weeks, and also I've been training for the last eight, nine weeks - so I'll have that in my tank. So I can really go in there with the power and the strength and everything," Khan said.
