By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Shawn Porter doesn’t view the Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan fight as the mismatch many consider it.
The former IBF welterweight champion “wouldn’t be surprised” if Khan pulled off an upset Saturday night in their HBO Pay-Per-View main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Khan (31-3, 19 KOs), who has been stopped in lightweight and junior welterweight fights, is nearly a 4-1 underdog approaching a WBC middleweight title fight against Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) that’ll be contested at a catch weight of 155 pounds.
“Most people think that it’s a difficult fight for him, moving up,” Porter said. “But we don’t know how much weight he loses to get to 47. The dude looks big. He was a big 140, he was a big 147. He’s tall, he’s rangy, he’s long, he’s fast, he’s got experience. He has what it takes to beat Canelo. I don’t think he can beat Canelo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
“The dude can box his butt off. He’s European, you know? He’s a good fighter. Most people discredit him because he’s been knocked out, discredit him because he’s been hit hard. We’ve seen him get hit and all that. But this is another day. If we see Amir at his best, we will see a good fight.”
Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs), who’ll challenge Keith Thurman (26-0, 22 KOs) for the WBA welterweight title June 25 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, doesn’t think Alvarez has quite the size advantage over Khan that some suspect. Alvarez is listed at 5-foot-9, only half-an-inch taller than Khan, who has never boxed above the 147-pound welterweight limit.
“He is fighting a bigger guy,” Porter said. “But we don’t know how much bigger Canelo is [than] him because we don’t know how much weight he loses to get to 147, or how much he was losing to get to 140. Me, personally, I think that this is gonna be a good fight.”
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.
