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Here's where Amir Khan is better than Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Canelo Alvarez (L) and Amir Khan (REUTERS)
Canelo Alvarez (L) and Amir Khan (REUTERS)

LAS VEGAS – It's easy to criticize boxers who don't always seek out the toughest fights, who avoid the bouts the fans are eager to see. Far too many top-level boxers compete in far too many "appearance" fights.

You know the kind: The public wants A to fight B. But A and his promoter and B and his promoter want to milk it. So they say they'll fight each other, but then A announces he'll fight Z and B says he'll fight Y. And then if they both win, A will fight X and B will fight W.

And if they win those, then and only then will A fight B.

It gives the stars two easy wins and lines the pocket of the promoter with television money for what are non-competitive fights.

But it's a problem that has plagued boxing for years. Promoters will tell you they need to build up a fight, and while there is a sliver of truth to it, if they did a better job of promoting and making the competitive fights all the time, it wouldn't be nearly as necessary.

That, though, is the environment in which professional boxing exists in 2016.

So when there is an outlier like Amir Khan, a guy who has literally jumped through hoops to land a mega-fight, he should be singled out.

So, great job, Amir Khan.

Oh, and good luck. The welterweight contender finally got his mega-fight after years of being toyed with by the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, only to be left at the altar at the last minute.

So to get his big bout, he had to agree to move up to middleweight to fight Canelo Alvarez for the WBC middleweight belt.

On Saturday, Khan will challenge Alvarez in a pay-per-view bout at T-Mobile Arena for the WBC middleweight title. It is the culmination of a long, difficult and very public climb.

Of course, boxing being boxing, there is a hitch. The middleweight limit is 160 pounds, but there is a contractual limit of 155 for the fight.

Khan has fought only four times above 140 pounds and never above 147. Alvarez is regarded as a big 154-pounder and he'll walk to the ring in excess of 170 pounds after rehyrdrating following Friday's weigh-in.

"We tried to get [the weight limit] a little lower, but obviously, they refused; Canelo's team refused that," Khan said.

The 2004 Olympic silver medalist has desperately, sometimes comically, attempted to land fights with the sport's elite, primarily Mayweather and Pacquiao.

The three biggest draws in boxing over the time Khan has been a pro have been Mayweather, Pacquiao and Alvarez.

Give Khan credit: He could have refused to fight Alvarez, just the way that Mayweather isn't interested in fighting Gennady Golovkin. He could have cited the size differential as a primary reason for turning down the offer, and no one could have blamed him, because the size difference is substantial.

But Khan didn't refuse, and he accepted the offer.

Hopefully, more fighters follow suit, but today's boxing has devolved into a sport where businesses advantages dictate the rules and the terms.

If you're the bigger star, as Alvarez undoubtedly is in this case, you set the terms. Oscar De La Hoya, who is promoting the fight, famously did this in his 2007 bout with Mayweather. He was the bigger attraction at the time, and chose the weight and the venue and the gloves and many other important issues.

Mayweather went along with it because he wanted the fight. After Mayweather became the biggest star, he turned the table on most of his opponents and used his leverage to pull the same things.

It's a far cry from the days of the great Sugar Ray Robinson, who was primarily a welterweight and once for fought Joey Maxim for the light heavyweight title while weighing 157½, or two-and-a-half pounds less than the middleweight limit.

Those days are gone, though, and they're never coming back. So the sad reality for Khan is that if he wanted the big fight, he had to go up in weight to get it, to a potentially dangerous weight.

Credit to him for being willing to try.

But he's not just showing up to just to collect a paycheck. He actually believes he can win.

His chin has never been the greatest, but he said that his work with trainer Virgil Hunter corrected that flaw. It was, he said, a matter of balance.

"I think [the quality of my chin] has been [overblown]," Khan said. "The shots I've been hit with, they've been big, flush shots and I think anyone would have been put down with those shots, especially the fights I've been stopped. "I have been put down with the flash knockdowns and stuff which I probably could have not gotten caught with. But I've realized that when I do get caught and I do get put down are in fights where you throw a big shot yourself and you leave yourself open.

"It's double impact in a way, because I'm running into a shot without balance. With Virgil Hunter, Virgil has got me fixing my balance. He's made sure I'm under my feet when I go into an attack or moving away from an attack. I've always got my feet under me. I'm always in balance [now]."

He moved so quickly before, he said, that he would leave himself off balance and get caught with shots while in a vulnerable position.

If he gets caught by Alvarez with the kind of flush shots that lightweight Breidis Prescott and super lightweight Danny Garcia knocked him out with, he could be in serious jeopardy.

Yet, Khan will be there and in front of Alvarez.

Regardless of the outcome, he deserves props for being willing to step up and make a big fight, giving away many physical advantages in the process.

He's also sending his message to his peers about how to act as a professional.

"It's a great jump for me to take this fight," Khan said. "And it's a great message to send to other young fighters. You should take these big fights. That's what boxing is about, giving everyone the biggest fights. If you want to be known as a great champion, you have to take these risks sometimes."

Khan is a good, hardly great boxer, but there are a lot of boxers who can learn a lot by emulating the way Khan has handled himself.