Amir Khan was out of options when he took the fight with Chris Algieri. There was talk about a fight with Adrien Broner, but Broner wanted the fight at a catch weight. There was also talk about Miguel Cotto, but schedule conflicts put that fight on the back burner. So, that only left one option - Chris Algieri.
When the fight was first announced, Amir Khan had a ton of backlash. This was not the fight anyone wanted to see. Chris Algieri was seen by the public as an "easy" opponent for Khan.
"There were a few names I wanted to fight," Khan told Nick Parkinson. "Broner was another name, which I got no response back. Another one, Miguel Cotto, would have been a great fight for me. Boxing has a lot of different promotion teams, there are a lot of TV networks that work seperately and it's really hard to get a fight that you want.
"I think Algieri was in a position where he needed to make the fight, I was in a position where I was leaving it too late waiting for other fighters to get back to me and they weren't getting back to me."
"I thought before I make the mistake where I wait so long and I don't get the fight that I want, and I don't get to fight in May, then I'm going to have to make the Algieri fight. So, I got kind of desperate as well and had to really pick someone and I thought a good venue for me would be New York. The Barclays Center is where they're having the biggest fights and to be there, and I have a huge fan base in New York was appealing."