Khan hopes welterweight debut is audition for Mayweather bout

Amir Khan got tired of killing himself trying to make 140 pounds.

So the former world junior welterweight champion from Bolton, England, is moving on and up. Khan will fight as a welterweight for the first time when he faces Luis Collazo on Saturday in a 12-round bout at the MGM Grand Garden in what is essentially a tryout for what Khan hopes will be a megafight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. later this year or in the spring of 2015.

“I feel tremendous,” Khan said of being a 147-pound fighter. “I’m so much stronger. I haven’t killed myself making weight like in the past. It used to be the last seven, eight pounds were the hardest. I’d stop eating and drinking. Now, I can eat what I want when I want.

“It was definitely the right thing to do. I probably should have done it sooner, to be honest.”

Khan (28-3, 19 knockouts) had publicly campaigned to fight Mayweather and he was very upset when Mayweather chose Marcos Maidana, someone Khan had defeated in 2011, instead of him. But Khan looks back on what happened and he sees the positives of it.

“It gives me a chance to get my feet wet at this division,” he said of fighting at 147 pounds. “I can get a fight in at this weight and see how it feels. It also gives me more time to spend with (trainer) Virgil Hunter. We’ve spent the last eight months together and I see a huge difference in my power, speed and movement.

“My defense is also better. I’m holding my hands higher than I used to and we’ve worked on the mistakes I used to make. I used to take silly shots; I used to jump onto a lot of the shots, which I believe are probably twice as hard as when you do get hit. So we’ve worked on being smart, being patient, using the defense and the offense at the right time. He’s making me understand the sport of boxing.”

Khan has been training at Hunter’s home base in the San Francisco Bay area and he admits he has had to sacrifice being away from family and friends. But if he beats Collazo on Saturday, he believes a bigger reward lies ahead.

“He’s a good opponent,” Khan said of Collazo, 35-5 with 18 KOs. He proved himself the last time by knocking out Victor Ortiz. I think he has earned his way.”

And that’s essentially the message Mayweather has sent to Khan — earn your way. Khan’s last fight, a 12-round unanimous decision win over Julio Diaz on April 27, 2013, was hardly scintillating. The scores were 115-112, 115-113 and 114-113 and Khan admitted he wasn’t as good as he should have been.

“People remember you for your last fight and my last fight I didn’t fight my best,” he said. “I need to have a better performance in this fight.”

Khan, who will earn $1.5 million for Saturday’s fight (Collazo’s purse is $350,000), is a minus-320 betting favorite over Collazo at the MGM Resorts sports books. But he knows it’s a close fight and he also knows that looking past his opponent could be fatal in his attempt to get a crack at Mayweather down the road.

“People are saying I’m looking past Luis Collazo for Floyd Mayweather,” Khan said. “If I lose this fight, there is no fight with Floyd.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.