Amir Khan's ambition of staging one of his fights here in the UAE will have to be put on hold for the time being after the British boxing star revealed he was weeks away from sealing a showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Khan (28-3-0) has made his intentions of fighting in Dubai perfectly clear and last summer attempted to organise a bout with welterweight rival Devon Alexander for December.
The American's reluctance to fight outside of his homeland put paid to that possibility and a bout between the two had seemingly been set for Brooklyn, only for Khan to pull out. Alexander subsequently fought – and lost – to domestic rival Shawn Porter.
The Briton's withdrawal immedaitely sparked rumours of an impending fight with pound-for-pound king Mayweather, and following weeks of silence and speculation, Khan admits an announcement is expected for January.
“It’s the fight I’ve always been after and we’re very close now, not too far away," the former two-time light-welterweight world champion said. "Hopefully something is going to be announced within the next couple of weeks.”
Khan will not have fought for 13 months by the time a projected fight with Mayweather takes place, but far from being a negative, Khan believes the time out has helped turn him into a better fighter as he has worked with trainer Virgil Hunter on correcting mistakes which were all too evident in his scare against Julio Diaz.
Khan added: “The break has been so good for me because over the last few years I’ve been training or fighting all the time and this time I’ve focused on building my relationship with Virgil.
“Next time I go into camp I’m going to know exactly what I’m doing with him. I’ve already been working on correcting the mistakes I’ve made in the past, so you’re only going to see an improvement.”
Khan would start out as an enormous underdog against Mayweather, who stretched his record to 45 straight wins when he outpointed Mexican Saul Alvarez in September.
He would effectively be stepping up a weight division to take on the champion, and would not be doing so in the best of form after being pushed to the limit by Diaz.
However Khan said he will take heart from recent upsets in the sport, including Alexander’s shock title loss to Porter, and Adrien Broner’s defeat to Marcos Maidana last weekend.
He added: “Boxing’s all over the place at the moment with all the underdogs coming through to win.
“If I get the fight I have no doubt I can go and take it.”
