Amir Khan believes that defeating Manny Pacquiao will be harder that scoring a win against Floyd Mayweather Jr. - two of the fighters that he is eyeing for his next fight.

In an interview with The Guardian, Khan said that fighting Mayweather will be like a chess match, but Pacquiao will be a bit harder because of the Filipino boxing icon's intensity on top of the ring.

"Boxing is all about timing and Manny and Floyd are getting older. Someone has to take their place. Mayweather would be a very technical fight, like a game of chess. But I think Manny would be harder. He's much more aggressive and it would be more intense," Khan said.

Khan, who is coming off a dominating win against Luis Collazo on May 3, has been lobbying for a fight against either Mayweather or Pacquiao, but the Briton knows that both fights are out of the picture at this point.

Pacquiao is set to defend his WBO welterweight title against Chris Algieri, while Mayweather will go up against Marcos Maidana in a rematch on Sept. 13 in Las Vegas.

"The Mayweather fight has gone for now," Khan admitted. "The Manny fight too. So I'll be disappointed because who else is there to fight? It's very hard to get a top-10 guy but I want to keep busy."

The 27-year-old Briton remains confident, though, that he will eventually get the chance to face Mayweather, probably next year, saying that the reigning pound-for-pound king will also benefit from facing him - money-wise.

"I know he needs me to make the really big pay-per-view numbers and money motivates him," Khan said of Mayweather. "It drives him because he can make much more fighting me than Maidana. I'm big in the UK, Dubai, Asia and places where Floyd's not as well known."

And as for the Pacquiao fight, Khan is also optimistic that he will be in consideration for his former sparring partner's future fight, pointing out that it would be a great fight because of the attractive storyline that they can make.

"The Manny fight can still happen at some point," Khan said. "My promoters, Golden Boy, and Bob Arum [Pacquiao's promoter] are about to start working together again. Me and Manny sparred a lot, and I often went with him to the Philippines, so it would make a great fight."