Amir Khan will have to wait for world title shot

Amir Khan will not beat Naseem Hamed's record as Britain's youngest postwar world champion. Indeed, there is a very good chance that he may have to wait until he is 22 to get his shot at a world title.
He would have to win a world title in his next bout to break Hamed's record, but his next fight is going to be a defence of his Commonwealth lightweight title at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. The rumours are that it could be against Michael Gomez, which would be something of a disappointment. Gomez's best days are behind him, as he showed when he was stopped by Carl Johanneson. He also didn't make a list of potential challengers issued by the Commonwealth Boxing Council this week. And it wasn't a restricted list - there were 21 names on it.

The problem is that Nate Campbell, who holds the WBA, WBO and IBF titles is next likely to face Joel Casamayor, the interim champion. That means if Khan, who is due to be confirmed as the mandatory challenger after his win over Martin Kristjansen (pictured) last month, he will have a fair bit of time for that mandatory defence to come around.

The other option would be to persuade Campbell to make a voluntary defence. But that comes with different risks. Campbell is promoted by Don King and it seems certain that he would demand options on Khan to allow Campbell to make a voluntary defence against him. With so much money invested in Khan, that just isn't going to happen.

Khan is actually in an interesting position because after the Birmingham bout he will be out of contract. Frank Warren is an overwhelming favourite to re-sign him, but Asif Vali, Khan's business manager, was keen to play his cards close to his chest. "We are talking to several people, including Frank," Vali said.

What seems certain, however, is that this will be Khan's last fight on ITV. I was told that no talks had taken place between ITV and Warren despite the Kristjansen bout getting 6million viewers. Instead ITV seems intent on briefing non-boxing journalists about how boxing is not worth the investment. Maybe boxing is just too high-brow for them - this is the network, after all, that brings us Golden Balls - has there ever been a more revolting show?

I was quite shocked when my colleague Kevin Eason wrote in The Insider that Setanta's figures of 554,000 viewers for Calzaghe-Hopkins compared to the 10.5 million for Liverpool v Chelsea justified ITV's decision to pick football over boxing (erm...Calzaghe-Hopkins was at 4am and on Setanta, as opposed to 7.45pm midweek on ITV). In January, a Guardian article reported Mark Sharman, ITV's head of  news and sport, speaking to the press at a relaunch of News at Ten said boxing was becoming "commercially unviable".

I've only spoken to Sharman once properly. My main memories of that conversation, at the time ITV was getting back into boxing three years ago, was that he didn't rate Joe Calzaghe. Not a boxing expert then.

Comments

[Phill Arrowsmith]

I'm a big fan of Khan and firmly believe that he will go on to be a much better champion than Hamed who, although very good, was nowhere near as good as he thought he was, however, can anybody explain why he is fighting Michael Gomez next? Gomez is a great lad but a) he's a super feather, b) he's ranked in the mid-hundreds at super feather c) when he lost to Johanneson it was generally agreed that it had been one fight too many and that he was a finished fighter. How is this going to help Khan prepare for a title shot?

[Ron Lewis]

Amir is a very nice kid and all the money hasn't gone to his head yet, so I don't really anticipate many problems on that front. Whoever comes in is going to have to be happy to come to Bolton to train, so, if they want an American, it's unlikely to be one of the high profile ones.

[scott]

It was likely that Khan wasnt going to beat nasseem's record. I honestly do believe nasseem was at another level compared to khan however i believe khan has still got a good career ahead of him as long as he he makes the right decisions about who should be his trainer and manager. I think Frank will remain as his promoter but i was shocked at the news of khan and his trainer having parted shows that there are still some internal issues that need to be sorted out. this needs to be quick so that Khan can get focused again because history has a tendency to repeat itself and how many potential good boxers and legends have we seen not get through to the top due to these internal problems. Naz had the same issue he left a his trainer who had trained him all his life and then frank warren was also crossed off the list. I still think these were key mistakes that lead to naz becoming lazy in his training and also getting himself up wrapped in all the wheeling and dealing which frank use to do and he lost the main focus of why he was there in the first place to fight. We can see this in most great fighters that they had a tight camp and team and most recently its been the calzaghe crew and the mayweather productions.

What you reckon Ron?