Luis Collazo has fought top-tier opponents on major cards before, but none compare to the fight the Brooklyn boxer faces next.
“It’s the biggest fight in my career,” said Collazo, a Williamsburg native. “I’m just embracing it and giving it my all. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give it my all. It will be my moment.”
That moment will come on May 3, when the 33-year-old welterweight takes on Amir Khan, 27, in the co-main event of the bout between Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The pay-per-view fight is the first of this magnitude for Collazo since he took on Andre Berto for the World Boxing Council welterweight title in January of 2009. A victory over Khan could open the door for another world championship fight.
Collazo is coming into the fight off his biggest victory in nine years. He scored a dramatic second-round knockout of Victor Ortiz at the Barclays Center last January. People are still talking about the win.
“Every where I go people are like, ‘Oh man that Victor Ortiz fight was just amazing, but it just finished so fast,’ ” Collazo said. “In my head I’m like, ‘I’m glad it finished fast. I’m the one getting hit. Not you guys.’ ”
He hopes to give them something else to talk about when he steps into the ring with Khan, who hasn’t fought in more than a year. This will be Khan’s first fight at welterweight, a division Collazo has competed in his whole career. Collazo (33–5, 18 Knockouts) said Khan (28–3, 19 Knockouts) is a great overall fighter with good hand speed, but he believes that his familiarity with fighting at this weight will give him an advantage.
“It’s a different weight class for him,” he said. “I’m going to welcome him in with open arms, and I hope he enjoys it,” he added with a wink.
If he wins, and Mayweather does the same, Collazo hopes to soon get a shot at the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter — and his belt. Collazo said it won’t be hard to concentrate on Khan even with Mayweather all around him this week. If the opportunity to fight Mayweather arises after that he hopes they can bring the bout to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center.
“It would be amazing,” Collazo said. “I’m sure the Brooklyn fans would try to push for it too. Floyd has never fought in New York. To be able to bring him here to the East Coast would just be tremendous. I’m sure the Brooklyn fans and the New York fans would love that fight here.”
For that to happen, he has to get the best of Khan first, which will be no easy task, but Collazo will worry about that on Saturday.
For now, he is enjoying the ride that got him to this point after taking nearly two years off between fights to get his life together from 2009 to 2011. It was all worth is for his moment.
“In life you go through certain things to make us better as an individual,” Collazo said. “Now that I’m here. I’m just blessed and so complete that now I believe that I’m on God’s time now.”
