Floyd Mayweather: I'd have fought Amir Khan, but the timing just didn't work

Mayweather retired last year with a perfect 49-0 record, having taken down long-time rival Manny Pacquiao in the summer and following it up with an easy passage into retirement against no-hoper Andre Berto.

The latter bout was dubbed "a complete waste of time" by USA Today's Nick Schwarz, though given how carefully Mayweather has controlled his career and his opponents it is probably unsurprising that he didn't finish off with more of a challenge.

Khan had hoped to be the man who provided that challenge - but during a trip to Lancashire on Thursday, Mayweather explained that it had just been a case of bad timing.

"It’s all about timing. A lot of people didn’t think that the Manny Pacquiao fight would happen but it did, so the timing wasn’t right to fight anybody else,” he told the Manchester Evening News.

"I’m now retired so I’m not interested in facing anybody else, my main focus is on promotional company Mayweather Promotions."

Khan has missed out on another super-bout, with Pacquiao choosing to face Timothy Bradley in April - the choice reportedly being made by TV channel HBO, according to reports.

Instead, Khan will now face Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, the WBC world middleweight champion, in Las Vegas on May 7th - a fight which will also be broadcast on HBO, and which ironically is now expected to bring in more viewers than Pacquiao's third career encounter with Bradley, a man the Filipino has already beaten twice. As BoxingNews24 put it, "fans are mainly talking about the Canelo-Khan fight right now, and almost none are discussing the Pacquiao-Bradley fight."