AMIR Khan knows that beating Chris Algieri on Saturday night is crucial if he is to realise his dream of fighting Floyd Mayweather.
Khan (30-3) meets the experienced Algieri - whose only loss in 21 fights came last time out against Manny Pacquaio - in Brooklyn on Saturday night. The bill is live on BoxNation and Khan says he isn't looking any further than seeing off New Yorker Algieri.
"Winning this fight is everything to me," he said.
"I'm not looking past this Chris Algieri fight. I know it's a very dangerous fight for me. Stylistically he's very dangerous and I'm not going to be looking past it.
"If I do, I'll have made a mistake. I've looked past fights and made mistakes. It will put me right back where I don't want to be."
Algieri has scored only eight knock-out wins in his career,
but Khan has described him as "dangerous".
"Technically I think overall he's a very good boxer, moves well," said Khan.
"He makes a lot of fighters fall short. He's very skilful. You have to be on you're A-game to beat him.
"I've been watching a lot of videos like Provodnikov. Even the Pacquiao fight, there's some good things he did there. It could be dangerous for me coming into this fight if I'm not on my A-game.
"I have to be one step ahead and make sure I don't make any mistakes. Chris Algieri is a guy that if you make a mistake, he's going to make you pay for it."
Khan was criticised for taking what many pundits saw as a winnable fight for him, but w, the
WBO World super lightweight champion, has pedigree and shouldn't be dismissed.
"There's people putting this fight down, and I don't know why," he said.
"At the end of the day, Chris has won a world title. He's been in the ring with Pacquiao in his last fight. He's a very good boxer, moves well, boxes well.
"All this stuff that people are saying, they're probably thinking Amir thinks it's going to be a walk in the park, but he'll make a mistake and lose this fight.
"I take every fight seriously. I've made that mistake in the past. For example the Danny Garcia fight. I've fought some fights that I thought are going to be a walk in the park; I got hurt, I lost the fight.
"I'm not thinking any fight is going to be easy. Every fight I walk into, every person in front of me is going to be in there to win the fight."