Former unified super-lightweight world champion Amir Khan has declared he has accepted an offer to face Manny Pacquiao in an exhibition bout.
The 37-year-old hung up his gloves in 2022 after suffering a sixth-round stoppage loss to bitter rival Kell Brook.
But the British boxer has repeatedly teased the idea of a comeback in the crossover boxing sphere.
There was talk of Khan duking it out with YouTuber-turned-boxers Slim Albaher and KSI yet neither of those fights came to fruition.
Instead, he has turned his attention to a clash with eight-weight world champion Pacquiao.
‘PacMan’ has competed in exhibition bouts since retiring from the paid ranks in 2021.
In 2022, he beat martial artist DK Yoo on points in a dominant victory, but he looked like a shadow of his former self in his most recent outing against kickboxer Rukiya Anpo in July.
The fight was a non-scoring bout so it ended in an automatic draw, however Pacquiao’s performance left a lot to be desired, prompting fans to call for his retirement.
That hasn’t stopped an undisclosed country from offering a huge sum of money to stage a fight between Khan and Pacquiao though.
“The next one we’re looking at is in the boxing ring and it is with the likes of Manny Pacquiao, so that’s what we are looking at and the country that’s backing it is very, very powerful,” Khan told Prime Casino.
“The fans want it, now the ball is in Manny’s court if he wants to do it, and I know there’s a lot going on in his life as he’s in politics.
“It’s just a waiting game. This happens a lot in boxing and then you both end up getting bored of it.
“When you’ve seen the proof of funds from the country itself, you know that it is real. They’re not messing about.
“The motivation is always going to be there. We’re friends. We’ve fought each other.
“We’ve trained with each other. At the end of the day, we are prize fighters.
“A prizefighter, with a fight like that on the table, you’re never going to say no because it is a massive, massive fight.
“Maybe it’s a little bit too late but there’s still going to be fireworks because we’ll both have our hearts on our sleeves, and we’ll fight, we’ll fight very hard.
“It’d be good to do that fight but it just depends. Obviously, me and Manny are well-paid fighters and we get paid enough for our previous fights, so we won’t be taking anything less or short-changing ourselves for anyone.
“There is interest there, but I’ve left it to the team. Manny is showing some interest as well.
“Let’s see with this new entry — you’ve got Saudi Arabia, UK boxing is big — but another nation is coming in hard and wants to throw money at entertainment now.
“I can’t say their name, but if they come in now they’re going to follow the same footprint as Saudi Arabia.
“We’ve made $12-13 million through fighting so we’ve done well in the sport, so to have another paycheck thrown at you again, who would say no to it?
“Especially when you’re retired. That’s a massive motivation to get back in the ring.
“And another big motivation is to fight against such a great fighter as Manny Pacquiao, which never happened in the boxing ring when we were both active fighters, but it can happen now so why not, yeah?”
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