Amir Khan is open to facing Floyd Mayweather Jr on potentially the same night that Miguel Cotto may face Canelo Alvarez on May 2nd, 2015.
Cotto vs Canelo would be an HBO deal while Mayweather vs Khan would be on Showtime. Going head to head would seem to be box office suicide but Khan feels otherwise.
“I don’t think it should affect us because, to be honest with you, you’ve got two superstars in boxing,” Khan said to Fighthype.com.
“I’ve always said there’s a hidden market there, the Pakistani, the Indian community that can be huge in pay-per-view buys,”Khan said. “We’ve never had a Pakistani or Indian fighter [fighting on pay-per-view]. So when they see one of their own fighting, regardless if they know him or like him or not, they still would buy the fight because they’ll be like, ‘Look, this is one of our guys.’ So I think when you’ve got two superstars against one, I think you know which show’s going to win and who’s going to get the bad numbers and stuff, even if it’s on the same day.”
As a fan, I want the box office numbers to remain high as it preserves the sport. But I think Khan is fooling himself in thinking that the Pakistani/Indian community can rival the Mexican/Puerto Rican contingent when it comes to pay per view buys. He's the obvious b-side in the match-up and if the cards went head to head it will be Mayweather's fan base that will make the biggest dent in the pay-per-view buys.
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