By Edward Chaykovsky
Former world champion Wayne McCullough is pleading with Amir Khan to avoid a likely disaster by taking part in a Mixed Martial Arts contest with UFC featherweight world champion Conor McGregor.
Khan wants to upstage Floyd Mayweather Jr. by facing McGregor in an MMA showdown.
Mayweather was talking up the possibility of facing McGregor - but only under traditional boxing rules. Khan is ready to face McGregor in a fight under MMA rules. If the fight would ever come together, Khan would be a big betting underdog in the contest.
McCullough trains MMA fighters in the United States and worked for UFC for five years. He warns that McGregor would put Khan away in 30 seconds.
"I just started laughing! Conor McGregor would eat him up in about 30 seconds and that would be it. I tell you what, with those small gloves on, you better have a good chin – and Amir Khan has not shown a good chin in boxing. No disrespect to Amir, but this is a different ball game,” McCullough talked to TalkSport.
Khan recently stated that he's not trying to target McGregor to generate press clippings. He wants to test himself in the cage with a world class fighter.
“This isn’t just for publicity, it’s real. Conor has been talking about fighting a boxer. He wanted to fight Floyd Mayweather, but Mayweather didn’t want it. If me and Conor were going to do it, we’d do one boxing and one MMA. It would be a two-fight deal and would definitely work," Khan told Gavin Glicksman of Sun Sport.
“Boxing is my first priority, but big deals have been thrown at me for MMA. I love trying new sports out and maybe there could be something that happens in the future — if the deal is good enough, why not? Conor’s got a big fight ahead of him against Diaz, but let’s see. It would take me six to eight months to prepare. It would be a lot of hard training and I would focus on MMA. I can kick quite hard!”
